Wind Whispers: Virginia's Tale
by J. Anne Brown
Summary: This is the story of Virginia Whitlock, Jasper Whitlock's younger, human sister. She was introduced in Chapter 3 of my other story, The Long Road Home. Virginia, or Ginny as she prefers, is special too....
1. Chapter 1: Awareness

_**Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.**_

_**Author's note: This story is written about a time period of American history that dealt very bluntly and often unfairly with issues of race. Slavery was a fact of life, and racism was the rule and not the exception. Please do not confuse my accurately accounting things (such as prevailing attitudes, beliefs, and mannerisms such as accents and ways of speaking) with endorsing such. I strive to be as accurate and faithful to the characters and history as possible. Thank you.**_

**Rated T for adult themes**

**Chapter One: Awareness**

I've always known I was different from everyone else.

Even when I was a tiny child, it was something I just understood, even before I could speak.

I had unnaturally early and vivid memories. Common knowledge says that a baby can't remember things, that our memories really begin once we're two or three years old at the very earliest, when the mind has developed more…but I remembered things very well, and much earlier, than at two or three years of age. And I remember that even then I knew something set me apart from others.

My first clear memory must have been when I was about six months old. Before that, there were jumbles of color and sound and sensation, which gradually began to grow more and more distinct with time's passing.

I think that was when I was about six months old, because I was just beginning to be able to roll myself over and to push myself up on my hands and knees, to rock back and forth gaily, not going anywhere, but exulting in the ability to _move_. I remember feeling a sensation I later could label as "exhilaration," that I could make my body do what I wanted it to do.

To be able to make your body respond, to make it do what you tell it to do when you want it to, is something adults take for granted, until they have been rendered helpless by old age or illness. _Then_ they understand all too well. Babies understand it very well, too, in their own way; that helplessness and frustration is humiliating, and it is the norm for them. Why do you think babies cry so often? Wouldn't you, if you had no idea who or where you were, and had no idea what was going on around you, compounded by the inability to control your own body?

But I digress. Not many babies can remember like I did.

In that first, formative memory, I remember Mama laughing her sweet laugh from somewhere above me, and my big brother clapping his hands and laughing with her. I remember hearing their words, which I didn't understand then, but I loved the sound of their voices, regardless of what they said. I laughed too, knowing it would make them happy and laugh even more to hear my giggles. Laughter was a trick I had mastered early; it was an excellent method to get the big people to make me more comfortable or to play with me.

Mama reached down and pulled me up to sit me on my bottom, her big warm hands bracing me, holding me up when I would have slumped forward, not sure how to keep myself upright yet. Big Brother took one of my hands in his; my little fist was swallowed in his, but it wasn't frightening, feeling so small next to him. I already knew him and loved him more than anyone else except Mama, but it was a different kind of love. Where Mama nurtured and sustained my body, Big Brother was the sun of my existence, lighting my world and bringing joy.

From my new vantage point, sitting up, I was able to see so much more! I looked around in wonder, taking in all the things for which I had no names yet: colors and shapes, sounds and smells. All so new and confusing, but still so exciting.

Before, swaddled and bonneted and lying in a cradle with solid wooden sides, I had been isolated, only getting glimpses of the world around me when Mama or Papa or Big Brother lifted me out to change me, dress me, bathe me, feed me. Then, half the time I was held against a big, warm shoulder, not able to see anything, or pressed against a fragrant breast, or someone would lean forward over me, blocking my field of vision while the changed my clothes or diaper.

This was so new, so intense!

And then it began: the whispering.

I'd heard it before, but never paid it much attention, like white noise in the background of my confusing world. Ever since I became conscious there had been, entwined with the normal sounds of life all around me, something…different from the other sounds. Whispering words that I couldn't understand, voices that were strange and disembodied. It was like the wind, even before I knew to call wind "wind."

A bright, swirling spot coalesced in the air corner of the room, I could see it over Mama's left shoulder. It drew my eyes like a magnet, with its colors and movement. The whispering came from there.

I didn't understand the words, of course, but I understood the intention behind them, the emotion. The whispering was letting me know that the whisperer knew I could hear them. And also, that Mama and Big Brother couldn't hear the whispering. And that it was special, for me to be able to hear it.

So I was special. Only I could hear it. Only I could see the colors.

I was delighted, and I laughed more in my delight. That caused them to laugh more with me, and we all collapsed in a jumble of joy. Big Brother tickled me, Mama kissed me, blowing on my tummy. The whispering chuckled softly as well, all around.

After that, as I grew, my memories grew more and more clear and solid. I remembered sitting up by myself. I remembered taking my first faltering steps, running from the side of Mama and Papa's huge bed into Big Brother's waiting arms. I remember throwing my bottle down onto the floor and demanding a cup of my own, and to be able to sit at the big table with everyone else and use my own spoon to feed myself.

And intertwined in all those memories that I shouldn't have, was the whispering.

They whispered to me in my dreams and in my waking times. I began to understand them. Eventually I realized it wasn't just one whisperer, but many. And although they were different, they all loved me, and were so happy I heard and saw them. To say I _saw_ them isn't quite right, though; I saw _something_, sometimes. Not always. When the whisperers tried especially hard, when it was especially important, I could again see that lovely swirling of colors and light, and pinpoint the voice coming from it. They'd shown themselves to me that first time to make their presence known to me.

By the time my first birthday had passed, I was running everywhere. A bit early, of course, but it delighted the big people in my life to see me zipping around, crashing into things and laughing when I fell down onto my round, well-padded little bottom. I knew I could do better, be less clumsy than I was, but I chose to hold back a bit, because I knew somehow that it might frighten my big people, how "advanced" I really was. I knew that because the whisperers told me, urging me to be cautious in how I displayed my differences. Big people are scared of different things, they whispered. They don't like to open their minds.

So I held back. I fell down like a normal kid. I tried my best to not be too showy about things.

Big Brother was everything to me.

He had watched over me since I was a squirming little red thing, his blue eyes deadly serious as he shouldered the responsibility for being my champion. Someone had told him once that snakes like babies, that snakes like to creep into cradles and get warm next to them, and that sometimes they bite the babies. Since we lived in the middle of Texas, rattlesnake central, Big Brother was determined to not let any snake get to me. Sometimes he fell asleep next to my cradle, his golden head leaned against it, his arm draped over the side, his fingers grasping my hand. I always felt safe when he was there. And I never saw one snake.

Once I could walk, I started following him everywhere he went. Sometimes he got frustrated with me getting in his way; I'd run along behind him, he'd stop, I'd slam into him, we'd tumble to the ground together in a confused tangle of arms and legs.

"Ginny!" he'd howl, trying to get up without hurting me.

By then I'd learned what my big peoples' words meant. And I knew my name, especially. Big Brother was the only one who called me "Ginny." Mama and Papa called me "Virginia," and the colored servants and slaves called me "Little Missy." I preferred Ginny.

I got up and then fell back onto him, howling with laughter, pounding on him. I knew he wouldn't hit back. "Funny, Ja-pa, funny!" I still hadn't quite managed perfect control over my mouth and voice yet, although I understood perfectly what I wanted to say…it just didn't always come out right. But I managed. He understood me.

"Yeah, yeah, Ginny…" he muttered, trying to untangle us. The buckles of his boots snagged on the flounces of my impractical lace crinoline. He pulled us apart as delicately as possible, then stood up, hauling me up with him, pausing for a moment to straighten my skirt, smooth down my wild hair. "Now, let's try that again, all right?" He extended his hand for me to take. "Let's go see if we can find some cookies!"

Cookies! I loved cookies, anything sweet. I grabbed his hand and held on for dear life as he hauled me off to the kitchen, to wheedle molasses cookies from the cook, who smiled her wide, white smile form her dark face. She glanced around, checking to make sure Mama or Papa weren't there, and then pressed a handful of warm cookies into Jasper's waiting palms. We took our booty to our hiding place beneath the stairs to eat, uninterrupted.

Sitting there in the shadows of the stairwell, leaning against my Big Brother, munching our cookies contentedly, I was so happy I felt I could just drift away on a cloud.

The whisperers approved. They caressed us both, but I was the only one who felt it for what it was; Jasper just shivered a bit. They loved Jasper too; they loved everyone, but especially those like me who heard them.

The longer I listened to them, the more I began to understand about them. They'd once been people, apparently, these whispering voices. Now they weren't people, their bodies had died, but they were still around, lingering, trying to make themselves heard. They existed somewhere between my real world and Heaven, I decided, one ethereal foot in each plane. I never was able to come up with a better analogy than that, even when I was fully grown.

The whisperers wanted me to pay attention to them, they had things to say, messages to relay. They showed me things that I might not normally notice. They warned me when there was danger.

Once, I was wandering around outside in the back yard, blowing dandelion clocks.

It was a hot, blistering Texas summer day. The sky over head was a bleached-out, cloudless blue; the sun beat down mercilessly on everything below. My own blonde head was so hot if I reached up to touch my hair it burned. But I was blowing dandelion clocks, and I was intent on my sport. It was great fun.

Mother cursed those dandelions every day. She'd throw open a window and stare moodily outside at the yard, mouthing bad words she'd never actually utter aloud. She wanted a rolling, green lawn full of lush beds of bright, ornamental flowers and shade trees, I knew, like from the tales of her youth that she told me in the evenings. What she actually _had_ was a scrubby field of half-dead yellow grass, studded with stubbornly healthy dandelions in various stages of growth and not a tree in sight.

When the yellow flowers ripened and turned into their downy white final stage, I would pluck them up and hold them before me. Cook had told the name for the flowers, and had told me once that if you blew on the white, mature dandelion three times it would tell you the time of day. Also, according to stories I'd heard from my mother and the help, the results of blowing on the flowers could tell you if your mother wanted to see you, or if it was time to go home, and sometimes it might tell you how many years you might live. It didn't matter if it was true; it was just fun. I loved watching the little white, fluffy seeds catch flight and ride the wind of my breath, then take off in the real wind, swirling away, up into the sky. I imagined myself as one of those seeds, flying high, free as the wind itself, without a care or a destination.

I'd found a particularly rich trove of flowers; I snatched up five of them, several in each hand, one for each year I'd been alive, and proceeded to blow. White seeds flew everywhere, caught on the hot breeze, whipping around and soaring up and away. I followed them, laughing, wanting to know where they'd end up.

I'd run for a little while, my healthy little body not tiring even in the oppressive heat, when suddenly the whispering voices turned to screams.

_**NO!!!**_

I stopped, still as a statue. I'd never heard them sound like that before. It was scary.

I was paused right before a clump of scrubby bushes, where the yard began to descend to the creek bottom. The dandelion spores kept on flying along merrily, the wind taking them to points unknown. I watched them go, envious.

A few inches away from my foot, a dry rattling sound buzzed up, stopping my heart.

_**BACK UP, SLOWLY!!!**_

I did as the whispers told me, my heart hammering with fear. Instead of lifting my feet I slid them back as carefully as possible, shuffling one foot after the other, until I was a good yard from the bushes. My eyes stayed fixed on them, waiting.

Eventually, a rattlesnake glided out of the bushes, dusty brown and green in the bright sunlight, smooth as a river over stones, serene and confident as it sought better shade. Thick as my little wrist, and longer than my four-year-old body, it would have killed me, had I stepped on it, unknowingly.

My heart thudding hollowly in my chest, slowing down gradually as the shock began to wear off. I sat down abruptly, not having the strength to stand any longer. My dandelions fell to the ground.

_Thank you! _I thought, wondering if they would hear me.

_**Watch yourself, child. **_All the separate and diverse whispers merged into this, a voice so strong and sure I was sure anyone else should have heard it.

They loved me. I didn't know why, other than that I could hear them, but the whisperers loved me, and they watched over me as best as they could. But they couldn't touch me except as a cool, vaporous caress, couldn't stop me when I was barreling into something truly stupid. So I had to be more careful.

Mama began having me sit in on Jasper's lessons when I was a bit past five, shortly after the rattlesnake incident. She knew I was smarter than my age, and she also thought that girls should be educated as well.

"After all, Virginia Lucille, what good is an ignorant woman to her husband, or to herself?" she'd say.

I knew it was true. Papa relied on her opinions in many things. Every evening they sat before the fire, he in his leather armchair smoking his pipe, she in her cane rocker, embroidering or knitting something. He'd be reading from the newspaper and stop, folding it down to look at Mama over the top. "So, Margaret, what do you think of this new tariff on sorghum?" Or something like that.

Mama would keep rocking, her eyes never lifting from the embroidery hoop or knitting needles, and would reply in her soft, cultured voice, giving a long, detailed explanation of her thoughts on the issue.

Papa would sit for a moment, chewing on her words, then nod decisively and go back to reading…And the next day, while he was discussing the issue with some local merchant, he'd voice his opinion…which matched Mama's exactly.

Mama loved to read, and she pressed it on Jasper and I. Luckily it didn't stunt our desire to read, but did the opposite. Jasper was especially bad about it; he'd always have a book stuck somewhere, and would often get in trouble for shirking his chores when he was caught with his nose in a book somewhere, leaning on his pitchfork or spade or whatever.

I loved to read, too, but I also loved science and mathematics and geography. One of our tutors had a lovely globe, and I adored spinning it and randomly stopping it with one finger on some strange, exotic country, and then finding out everything I could about it.

The whisperers helped me with that, too. They seemed to have come from everywhere, and they loved to show me things about the places that had been their homes long ago. I was shown brilliant glimpses of faraway places, sometimes caught whiffs of foreign smells, heard odd languages. It was amazing.

I was a fast learner. Even though I was five years younger than Jasper and he was several years ahead of me in schooling, I caught up to him pretty quickly, though I did pretend to be behind in some subjects…to be kind to his pride. Jasper was a sweet, quiet, intense boy, very intelligent, and I'd never want to hurt his feelings. It wasn't that I was smarter than him, per se, but I just had something about me that made learning especially easy. Perhaps it, along with my early memories, was related to my ability to hear the whisperers: I was just born with very keen senses and a very open mind.

Regardless, I enjoyed school. Our lessons were given at home; Mama would never stand for us getting a common education, among the children of farmers and storekeepers in the little schoolhouse a mile off our property. I hated that part of our schooling; I wanted to be among other children, make friends, experience new things. But Mama would have nothing to do with it.

"Really, Virginia Lucille!" she exclaimed, exasperated, one morning, after I'd been nagging her about letting us attend the school. She slapped her palm down on the tabletop and sighed. "What have you in common with those other children? They're all children of poor families, with no breeding or background to put you on an equal footing. Besides, that poor teacher there has too much on her hands anyway, with seventeen children in a one-room school, all different ages and backgrounds… I won't have it." Her pale blue eyes held mine, her lips in a tight, serious line.

I hated hearing her speak about things like that: although Mama was a sweet, gentle person, she'd been raised very traditionally, on an old, prestigious tobacco plantation in Virginia, where the family never mixed with outsiders, especially those of color.

"You and Jasper will learn more and better here, with your tutors, and always be under our eyes, to keep you out of trouble!"

She had me there. I was always getting in trouble. I'd probably have given that teacher premature gray hairs.

I was a bit of a handful; I look back on my childhood now with the wiser eyes of an adult and have to shake my head and chuckle. I did things that no other girl back then would have done, with total abandon and no thought for social convention, no matter what Mama did or said.

While I was growing up there were generally two kinds of girls.

First were the children of the upper class, petted and pampered and dressed like dolls, treated like porcelain, and expected to be nothing more when they grew up than well-groomed wives who would produce well-groomed children for their equally well-groomed husbands. Those women were expected to have few opinions, have delicate skills such as needlework and music and poetry; they were afflicted with "the vapors," which amount to fainting spells brought on by too much intensity, and other mysterious female illnesses that doctors dismissed as hysteria. The feminine mystique was the common opinion: woman was the soul of culture and the heart of the home, not to be exposed to the dangers and realities of the world, and they were idealized by the men who felt them too intellectually inadequate to vote or have rights of their own. These poor ladies often died fairly early, I imagine often indirectly from the loneliness and emptiness of all their years pining away atop the pedestals their men put them on.

I should have been one of those; somehow I managed to avoid it. Mama would have been happy had I at least had some decent manners and feminine charm. I worked hard to put a veneer on my outside, but I never let go of my wild spontaneity inside. It was my soul.

The other kind were the children of common women, who worked from their girlhood and died early, often from childbirth or overwork or uncared-for illnesses, their hands rough and hard from labor, usually completely uneducated. They struggled and fought for everything they had, were grateful for it, and had shrewd, pragmatic views instead of a useless artistic education. I saw little of these kinds of women until I managed to escape from under Mama and Papa's wing a few years later, and found I had much more in common internally with them than with the delicate upper-class flowers…despite Mama's best efforts.

I always wondered at my mother's personal duality: she was, on one hand, the classic example of idealized femininity of the time. Her honey-brown hair was always meticulously curled and pulled up in the latest style; she had pale skin that she cared for meticulously; she always dressed well, even though we were far from anything resembling a fashionable locale. She was soft-spoken and modest, excelled in the "feminine arts," and came from an impeccable background. Yet she was well-educated and felt I should be too, and had very sophisticated opinions about many different things, things most cultured women would never consider. She made me shrug and shake my head in confusion.

Regardless, as I mentioned, I wasn't exactly the most exemplary girl. I was far too wild: I laughed to loud, ran too fast, talked too much, and kept company with boys outside, instead of staying inside to work on my needlepoint and piano lessons. I played practical jokes and told jokes and eventually managed to get Jasper to teach me how to shoot and do other boyish things. He even taught me how to spit.

We played cowboys and Indians and war games in the creek bottom with Henry and a few other local boys in the afternoons, when lessons had been adjourned and chores not yet due. I always ended up with skinned knees and torn skirts, my hair yanked from my braids in errant tufts and standing around my head like a wispy golden halo. Jasper would always have to inspect me before we returned to the house, yanking out a handkerchief to wipe away the worst of the dirt, helping me re-plait my hair and straighten my skirts.

"Really, Ginny, you should take more care. You know how Mother screams!" he'd admonish me quietly, and yank a braid for emphasis. But not too hard. He could never be too hard on me, could never stay angry at me, even when I played horrible pranks on him.

Ah, my pranks…

My favorites were one which caught him unawares in compromising positions. Marbles on the floor in the hallway leading to the outhouse in the middle of the night…thumbtacks on said outhouse's seat…spiders and frogs in boots and tucked into the foot of his bed, between the sheets…hot chili in his breakfast…shoe polish daubed on his palm while he slept, so when he went to scratch his nose he'd slather it all over his face, and wake the next morning thinking he'd turned Negro in the night…

I always managed to be nearby when the prank was played out. My whisperers helped me with that. They loved my sense of humor, and helped me find the right times and places for my plans. How angry Jasper would have been had he realized I had help in my evil machinations!

My whisperers were my constant companions through it all. I learned how to not always listen to them consciously; if I did, I would be so distracted I couldn't function. The more I sat and listened to them, focused entirely on them, the more I would lose touch with reality, and I understood instinctively from an early age that I couldn't let that happen. I couldn't ever reach my full potential if I my head was always in the clouds, and I knew that I had something important to do with my life—maybe several important somethings.

Since I wasn't always focused on them, the whispers became more and more prominent in my sleep, where I was almost one of them, disembodied and changeable, flowing languidly through my dreams. In those dreams they spoke very clearly at times, giving me advice and sometimes warnings, but rarely again so very emphatic as they'd been about the rattlesnake when I was so tiny.

One such time was when they showed me a plague of locusts. In my dream the insects descended from the sky in a leaden, chittering cloud, and they consumed everything around our farm for miles and miles, destroying all the crops and fields. I saw the cattle and horses slat-sided and starving. I saw dust clouds rolling, set adrift by the lack of grass, covering everything. I woke from that dream screaming, scrubbing my arms and legs frantically, feeling the locusts crawling all over me, spiny little claws stabbing me.

I streaked from my room without a thought, charging full-bore into Jasper's room, launching myself onto his bed and into his waiting arms. I didn't question how he knew I was coming; I never did, though he always was. Jasper was special in his own way.

"Gin, what's the matter?" he whispered into my hair, patting my back rhythmically like he had done when I was a baby, trying to calm me. Just like back then, when he did that, when he held me close, I felt peace start creeping through me, until the terror was almost gone. Only the images of those horrid, clinging, devouring insects remained in my mind, no more of the sensation of them on my skin.

I managed to inhale a full lungful of air without it being hitched and wrenched by sobs. I dried my face against his pajama jacket and lifted it to look up at him.

He was so handsome in the moonlight, even then. I think that was when I was seven and he was twelve. His face was very serious and calm, his eyes full of concern.

"I saw a lot of nasty bugs coming, Jas." I couldn't tell him too much, it would alarm him. But I couldn't be silent. "They flew like a cloud and they landed here and all around, and they ate everything! The cows were dying 'cause the grass and hay were all gone, and Papa had no crop to sell!"

His eyebrows lifted in surprise. I guess he was wondering how I knew what locusts were. There'd been no plague of them in recent memory, and we'd never discussed it in our lessons. I think Papa had mentioned them in passing once, during a Bible lesson on Sunday, when he was talking about the Plagues of Egypt.

"Like grasshoppers, Gin? But bigger? Browner?" He didn't try to tell me I was a silly little girl. That was one reason I loved him so much. He didn't look down on me, ever.

I nodded. "Yes, very big and brown, with big buggy black eyes. And they flew, and the sound they made was like…"I paused, scrambling for the right words. "It was like all the popcorn in the world popping at the same time, or a million cats clawing on the tin roof of the barn." I shuddered with the memory, brushing absently at my shoulder, where the ghost of a claw scratched through my nightgown.

The whispers swelled around me. Urging Jasper to believe me, even though he couldn't hear them.

Jasper shivered a little, glancing around the room, but he saw nothing, heard nothing. But Jasper was always a very sensitive person; perhaps he sensed _something_.

"So what, then, Gin? Do you think that it was just a nightmare, or what?" He seemed at a loss.

I didn't know what to do either. "I think it was more than a dream, Brother. It felt…different."

He nodded a little, his eyes distant as he thought. Again, he took me seriously, even when I was just a frightened seven-year-old girl. After a moment, something came to him, his face lighting up.

"I have it!" he said excitedly, and leaned down to start whispering in my ear. It only took him a minute to explain his plan; it was so simple it was funny. The whisperers laughed silently with us, overjoyed that a way had been found to put what they'd warned me about into action. We both laughed at our ingenuity, and I slept there with him until dawn touched the window with its rosy fingers, finally feeling safe.

We began carrying out our plan the next day, first thing.

I stole into the kitchen where Cook was assembling breakfast. She was a tall woman, her skin dark as coal but shiny and silken; she had a long, proud neck, and features like an aristocratic cat, with its large almond-shaped eyes and narrow chin. She looked like she'd been a queen in some other distant, exotic country, but she'd been born and raised in Texas. She always wore brightly patterned calicos, her kinky dark hair bound in a kerchief, and she went barefoot except in the dead of winter. She sang while she cooked, and she told me wonderful stories. We were good friends, and more.

Her sharp gaze caught me lingering in the doorway immediately. "Hey now, little Missy, what have you here?" she asked me in her purring voice. "Breakfast is not done, as you know!" Regardless of being born and raised in Texas, her accent was strange, falling and peaking at odd places, like a rolling green savannah.

"I know, Mama Dina, but I wanted to tell you about something!" I said, glancing back over my shoulder to make sure no one else was around to hear. "I had a dream last night!"

Her mahogany eyes lit up in delight, and she smiled her gleaming smile, her teeth so white against her dark skin. "Did you now, chil'?" she murmured, motioning me forward and leaning down so we were closer to the same height. She smelled like cloves and cinnamon.

Mama Dina had a healthy respect for dreams. Her own mother and grandmother, she had told me, had been dreamers. "They's had the Sight," she'd said when I had asked her about it a few years ago, rubbing one of my cheeks with her thumb, smiling. "Jes' like you, little Missy. I seen it in you from the time you was a little babe, you sees things. Wakin' an' sleepin'."

I didn't clarify anything for her, telling her about the whisperers. Somehow I knew it would frighten her, to hear that I heard voices. But dreams and visions weren't anything abnormal, different somehow, in her particular gathering of superstitions and spiritual beliefs.

After that, she always asked me about my dreams, and I told her. She'd give me advice on interpreting them, which sometimes helped. The entire community of hired help and slaves knew about my "Sight" now, and held me in a cautious reverence. But it was funny how that never managed to get back to my parents, who would have been horrified that their little girl was perceived as a benevolent kind of witch by their servants.

"Tell me 'bout it!" she whispered, handing me a cookie from the jar behind her. I took a quick bite before launching into the description of my dream, which was still as vivid that morning as it had been the night before. Maybe even more.

Her eyes grew wide and fearful, the white showing in stark contrast against her skin. "Ah, now, that's a bad 'un!" she said, her long-fingered hands clenching into fists in her apron pockets. "Bad indeed, my Mama tol' me about those. Ate ev'rthing! They had 'em back in the Old Country, too."

I nodded. "So what do we do? We can't make them not come, right?" I was wondering about some kind of African spell-casting, or maybe some Mestizo ritual. Whatever was necessary to keep those horrible bugs from eating my Papa's crops and the grass for our poor cattle.

Mama Dina pursed her full, lovely lips. They were the color of a dusky red muscat grape, and just as ripe.

"Well, chil', there's no way to keep 'em from comin', but at leas' if we's ready for 'em…" she trailed off, nodding decisively. She straightened and pulled off her apron, striding toward the back door that led out of the kitchen into the stableyard, glancing back over her shoulder. "You peel 'em taters, all right Missy? I needs to talk to Big John. I'll be back in a few minutes!"

Big John was the farm foreman. He was a mixed Mestizo-Negro freedman, and "big" wasn't sufficient for him. He was huge. And he was also Mama Dina's husband.

They'd come to work for Mama and Papa the year before Jasper was born, and had never left. They'd both been slaves on a farm in Alabama before, and had been freed when their owner died, emancipating them in his will and providing them with enough money to make a living for themselves out West.

When the couple had shown up at the newly-constructed gate, Papa had recognized the value of the huge man's experience and sharp mind, and Mama had been overjoyed at the concept of someone like Mama Dina to help her around the house. They became part of the family almost immediately.

Big John had helped Papa pick the right kind of men to work his lands, helped him decide on crops and which foals and calves to keep or sell, and generally ran the farm from top to bottom. Anything of importance around the farm was equally Big John's responsibility, and Papa relied a great deal on him. It never occurred to Papa to feel any kind of disdain or separateness from Big John—he wasn't a slave, after all, not anymore. His being a mixed-race person was just an unfortunate matter of birth, in Papa's opinion. Such blissful ignorance made me chuckle more than once.

As for Mama Dina, as I said she was our cook, but ever so much more. She ran the house, leaving Mama to be able to pursue her diverse feminine enjoyments and relax, since Mama had been half-crippled since my birth. Every surface of our home sparkled and shone, and our food was always ready when we were hungry. Her dark, capable hands had been the ones to catch both Jasper and myself when we'd emerged, squalling and red, from our mother, and she'd been the one to sing us to sleep and bathe us and wipe our bottoms. She was like our second mother.

I peeled the potatoes as she'd instructed me, casting occasional glances out the window, trying to see what was going on. Mama Dina had sprinted across the yard into the stable, her orange and yellow skirt flapping in the stiff, hot breeze that was already blowing. She emerged a few minutes later, hand in hand with Big John, both of them talking intently. I dropped my eyes to the potatoes as they came inside, trying to look like I hadn't been watching.

Two hard fingers plucked at my ear teasingly, not hard enough to hurt. "So, Missy, havin' dreams again, is we?" Big John laughed quietly behind me. I turned and smiled, looking up up up to finally see his broad, dusky face, with its own bright teeth in an answering grin. I nodded mutely.

Mama Dina picked up the paring knife I'd dropped and resumed the potato peeling. "Go on now, Miss Ginny, we gots it under care, all right? Don' you worry." She nudged me with her bony elbow, an unspoken way of telling me to get out of her kitchen.

Feeling relieved even though I didn't know what was going to be done, I'd skipped out into the scorching morning sun, looking for something to do until breakfast was ready. My whisperers were happy. I'd done the right thing.

A week later, when the locust cloud did in fact appear on the horizon, the farm was ready, although Papa had known nothing about it.

With a hue and cry, the hired hands and slaves began ringing the bell, and from thin air burlap sacks, torches, and smudge pots appeared. Men and women scattered everywhere, and before a half hour had passed a heavy, oppressive haze of smoke hung thick over our property. When the insects were directly overhead, the workers began flailing their sacks and stoking the smudge pot coals, pouring more smoke into the air, billowing it upwards. It looked like a thunderhead sat directly on our land.

I huddled inside with Jasper, watching through the closed window of his bedroom, which faced the fields out back. The sound of the locusts above was terrifying, their wings and constantly-working jaws making that chilling, chittering sound…I remembered my dream again and squeezed my eyes shut, shaking within the warm circle of Jasper's arms. Whispers swelled around me; I felt a brief caress on the back of my neck, as they sought to reassure me.

But they didn't land.

Discouraged by the smoke and the noise, the locusts passed us by, drifting south. We were safe.

Unfortunately, the word of the potential threat hadn't been taken seriously everywhere. Although the slaves and servants had put out the word of warning, not all had been able to convince their masters to be prepared. Several large farms to the south of ours were devastated. Although it was a sad thing, the losses of others, it did benefit us: where grain, hay, and cattle were in short supply, my Papa had it in plenty. Prices went up, and his accounts swelled.

But all I cared about was that they'd left us alone. I hadn't had to feel the touch of those bugs on my skin. And they hadn't destroyed everything.

After that, Jasper took me even more seriously, as did the servants. Mama Dina watched me with wise, pensive eyes, trying to catch hints of what was going on in my head.

There were several other things like that which occurred over the next several years. I correctly predicted a drought, and outbreak of foot-in-mouth disease in the cattle and horses, and an outbreak of burglaries and thefts. I always told Jasper, and we always found a way to do something about it.

Extra wells and new irrigation ditches were dug at Big John's urging; Papa had listened to his logic and eventually shrugged in assent, remembering the locust swarm, and how somehow the servants had been prepared when he had been utterly clueless. Those wells and ditches kept us thriving when other farms around us were parched and dying. I had even helped find some of them, guided by my whisperers and a hazel rod like Mama Dina had shown me long ago. Those wells have still never run dry to the best of my knowledge.

The plague among the livestock didn't touch us, either. Big John spread the word around to keep a close watch on the animals, and stopped accepting trades from cattle agents from far away. Unfortunately one of our neighbors bought a passel of infected cows, and he ended up losing all of the new ones plus all his other stock. Last I heard he sold his farm and moved West, seeking opportunity and gold in California.

As for the burglaries, Big John and his men became extra vigilant. It was a gang, they discovered eventually, a big group of dispossessed white men and runaway slaves and renegade Indians. When they saw our gates and barns well-guarded by deadly-serious men with guns, they must have decided to leave us alone. The closest the gang ever struck to our home was miles south, near Houston, where they decimated several farms, even killing some people. I heard they were caught eventually and hanged in a public display.

I also kept having a series of more vague but infinitely more oppressive, frightening dreams, where the whisperers urged me to beware, that _war_ was coming.

_Watch Jasper_, they told me in my dreams. _Watch him._ They showed me glimpses of my brother, older, harder, dressed in a gray uniform, clutching a musket. His face was cold and remote, not the serious but sensitive boy I knew and loved. I saw blood and smoke and fire. And something else. Something…very strange. They showed me three women, three beautiful women…but they weren't women. They glittered in the moonlight…

I woke up screaming, sweat pouring down my face, matting my hair to the back of my neck in sticky tendrils. Those women terrified me, with their brilliant smiles and red eyes. So lovely they hurt to see. But dangerous! Oh, my Jasper, what was going to happen to him!

Once again, I charged out of my room and into his waiting arms. Once again, he calmed me. But this time I didn't tell him about my dream. I lied, not knowing why, telling him I didn't remember. The whisperers approved of my lie, though normally they didn't like deception.

The years rolled on, and we grew like weeds under the spring sun.

Jasper shot up, a beanpole of a boy, towering over Papa and Mama, though he was still only to Big John's shoulder. He was a lean young man, but well-muscled from all the time he spent helping around the farm and in the saddle, and very handsome. His golden hair and tan reminded me of pictures of lions I'd seen in books, and the resemblance made me happy. He was my personal lion, the defender of my dreams and champion of my waking times. No matter how many pranks I pulled on him, he still was always there for me.

I didn't grow much; I guessed I never would. I was quite short and small-statured; Mama Dina called me her pixie. I even grew a bit vain, especially of my hair, which grew long and golden like summer wheat. Mama Dina loved to sit me down Saturday nights after baths and comb through the waves, smoothing out the tangles. She'd hum tunelessly while she did it, a slight smile on her lips. I wondered at those times, when she felt even closer to me than Mama did, why she'd never had children. Once I even dared to ask her.

Her beautiful face grew very still, her eyes sad. It took a moment before she answered.

"We had us a son, once, Missy. He were as big and strong as his Pa, or, he would'a been, if he'd lived." She blinked rapidly, her long lashes glistening with tears, I thought, though none ever fell. "He died when he were jes' a boy. Had a fever 'n terrible cough. One mornin'…well, he jes' never woke up."

I dropped my eyes, hot with shame. I'd never seen Mama Dina look so sad. I hated having caused that.

Her warm hand pressed against my cheek, urging my face up again. Her deep brown eyes met mine without any condemnation. "He went to a better place, baby. An' ever since, the Lord hasn't given me no more babies. 'Cause he gave me you, an' Mister Jasper. I think I'm a lucky woman."

She enveloped me in her strong arms and rocked me a little. For some reason I started crying.

Just like when I'd been a tiny baby, she pulled me into her lap and rocked me, shushing me. The whispers rose around us, trying to sooth me, too.

I didn't know why I was crying. I remembered my dreams again, and felt the heaviness inside me from having to keep them to myself. I had this awful sense of foreboding, that I was going to be alone soon, that something terrible was going to happen.

She began to sing to me, and her voice was like honey dripping, warm and sweet and deep.

_**Oh, hallelujah to the lamb  
Down by the river  
The Lord is on the giving hand  
Down by the riverside**_

_**Oh, we'll wait 'till Jesus comes  
Down by the river **_

_**Oh, we'll wait 'till Jesus comes  
Down by the riverside**_

_**Oh, we are pilgrims here below  
Down by the river  
Oh, soon to glory we will go  
Down by the riverside**_

_**Oh, we'll wait 'till Jesus comes  
Down by the river  
Oh, we'll wait 'till Jesus comes  
Down by the riverside**_

She'd sung that song to me when I was a baby, propping me against her shoulder and rocking, just like she was then.

After a while I stopped crying. She sat me up and wiped my eyes with the back of her hand, then brought her knuckle to her lips and tasted the tears, smiling.

"Angel tears're the best medicine, they says, for a broken heart," she murmured, patting my cheek again. "Did'ja get it all out, baby? Seems like y'been holdin' it in for a while."

I nodded. At least the pressure had abated a a little bit. I felt like I could breathe again.

She sent me off to bed after dosing me with one of her possets, the contents of which I could never quite guess, except that they usually contained some heady combination of honey, ginger, rum, and spices. The purpose was to knock me into a quick, dreamless sleep, and it always worked. I slept long and hard that night, untroubled by whispers or dreams, good or bad.


	2. Chapter 2: Abandoned

Chapter 2: Abandoned

Shortly before I turned twelve, my world as I'd known it came crashing down around me.

For months before, my dreams and the whispers were my constant, unwanted companions, sleeping and waking, but not comforting or informative like they'd usually been. I couldn't escape them. I thought I might be going mad. My lessons suffered, I dragged through the days like a zombie, food tasteless in my mouth…I'd drop into my bed at night and awake in the morning feeling exactly the same, as if I'd never slept. I begged God or whoever might listen to a little girl's prayers to please, let this stop. I couldn't take it anymore. I didn't want to be special anymore, if it meant I could have a bit of peace.

Mama Dina fussed over me, that I was taking ill, stuffing her home-brewed medicines and tonics down me, preparing my favorite foods to try to tempt my appetite, anything she could think of to shake me out of my stupor. She watched me constantly, dark eyes full of worry and fear. I heard her praying a lot, when she didn't think I could hear her: _Oh Lord, Lord and Spirits above and all around, please watch over my golden girl, and take away this cross you've given her…_

The images and whispers were always the same. War.

I saw men dying in my dreams, dark as thunderclouds boiling on the horizon, full of menace. I saw blood and smoke and heard screaming and gunshots as if they were in my room with me. I heard men and boys plead with their maker to take them away, to let the pain pass. I saw rows and rows of white crosses, marking graves. I saw brothers and cousins and best friends fighting one another, destruction and plague and rape.

A little girl shouldn't see and hear such things. It changes you.

But worst of all, I saw my Jasper in the middle of it all.

He was leaving me.

No matter how often I begged him to promise me he wouldn't sneak away, no matter how many times he made that promise, I always knew he was lying. I could see it on his face, and the whisperers told me so anyway. He'd always stroke my head and try to soothe me in his strange, familiar way…it might work for a while, but it was more like a painkiller, masking the sensation for a while until the drug wore off, leaving as much pain as before…perhaps even more, as you became suddenly aware of hurting again.

The day it all exploded, the day it all came to a head, was when Papa brought the paper home.

He'd been to a meeting in Houston, where the local assembly had gathered to discuss a resolution put forth in the State legislature, on whether or not Texas should join the other Secessionist States and leave the Union altogether. I knew what was coming. It was whispered in my ear as I sat in the kitchen, hearing Papa's horse's hooves pounding the turf in the stable yard outside the kitchen door.

He'd burst in with the news, that Texas had decided, Texas was out, Texas would stand with the Rebels for State's Rights and against Unionist interference with the Southern way of life.

I watched Jasper furtively as Mama read the paper Papa had handed her. He knew what it meant. I saw the sly expression flicker across his face, could fairly read the plot he was ironing out in his thoughts. He was leaving. Soon. And I couldn't stop him.

That night, after dinner, I tackled him and tried to use all of my available weapons to try to convince him to stay. Tears, threats, logic…None of it really worked.

We were dancing an elaborate little masquerade, each of us with our own secrets that we were guarding, each of us pretending to believe the other's lies. I couldn't tell him I knew what he was planning, because then I'd have to tell him _how_ I knew; he couldn't tell me the truth about his plans to run away and join the army, because then he'd have to admit his lies to me.

How ironic!

After that night, things got even worse for me. Before, it had been a feeling of dread and foreboding. My dreams and the things that were whispered to me had been more indistinct and nebulous, before that night. With the actual declaration of secession, the images became more clear and frightening…what had been foretold in the spirit world was becoming reality, rapidly.

I turned twelve with little fanfare; Mama Dina made me a little cake, and Mama and Papa gave me a few gifts.

Mama gave me a beautiful set of combs and brushes and a mirror, elegant worked silver set with moonstones and mother-of-pearl. Mama Dina loved to brush my hair with them, and arrange the long locks in elaborate fashions, while we laughed at ourselves in the mirror.

Papa gave me a new set of leather-bound books, the plays of Shakespeare and the works of Milton and Chaucer and a collection of love poems. Also, I got a new pony, a sweet-tempered little dappled gray, which I named Cloud. I found a bit of comfort spending time with him in the stable, currying his coat to a gleaming sheen and braiding his long, silky mane and tail. We understood each other; sometimes I would lean my forehead against his strong neck, and he'd lay his long nose over my shoulder, making little snuffling noises into my ear, nibbling on my hair.

Spring progressed, and each day that marched by brought me closer to the inevitable. The day would come very soon, when I would wake up and Jasper would be gone.

My restless sleep evaporated into insomnia. I had to pretend to sleep, often sneaking into Jasper's room to curl up with him, trying to keep him there with my presence. I knew it wouldn't work, but I still tried.

Then it came. The day my world ended.

Jasper came home that afternoon with a different aura around him; his demeanor practically screamed deception to my keen sight. He kept glancing about, seeing who might be watching him. He was jumpy and nervous. And he refused to meet my eye.

After dinner we washed the dishes together, even getting into a little splashing match; he was trying so hard to seem normal. Once upstairs, I tackled him again, trying to weasel the truth out of him.

I used every weapon in my arsenal. Tears, pleading, logic…none of it worked. He lied to me, blatantly and boldly. Supposedly it wasn't him that was sneaking off to war—it was his best friends, Henry and Newt Berryman, and Jasper was covering for them so they could get away safely. His eyes and voice pleaded with me to believe him, to trust him.

I realized the futility of my struggle; I felt something break inside me, felt something begin to wither and die. I'd fought and I'd lost: he was leaving. Tomorrow. My whisperers sighed into my ear, trying to comfort me, but I mentally shook them off in disgust. What good were whispers and dreams when you couldn't even keep your own brother from getting himself killed?

I wished he'd trusted me. But he didn't. No matter how much we loved each other, he didn't trust me not to betray his plans to Mama and Papa.

I suppose he was right to not trust me. I couldn't say with any surety that I wouldn't have run to Mama and Papa to tell on him. I could have still done that, made them watch him more carefully, lie to them like he was doing to me…

_**Let him go**__._

As strong and united as they had been that day I had almost trod upon that rattlesnake, they commanded me, the voices full of authority, no longer whispers. I was amazed Jasper didn't hear them.

So. I'd lost. I had to let him go. _Why?_ I asked them silently, begging for an answer that might make it easier.

_**Jasper has a destiny all his own, it calls to him from the future. He must wander long and far and endure many things, but in the end he will be made whole, and fulfill his role in this world.**_

Again, they sounded so sure, totally indisputable.

All my defiance drained out of me. I felt as empty and alone as an abandoned shoe on the side of the road.

Numbly, I pretended to believe his lie. I agreed to cover for his "secret", to not betray him to Mama and Papa. I played my role, the credulous little girl, though I felt like I was a million years old inside. I went through the motions of studying and doing our assignments for the next day, although I knew he was as distracted as I was…but his distraction was excited, his eyes shining with delight at the prospect of adventure and glory…My distraction was frantic and full of dread.

My dreams of war flooded my mind. So much blood and death. He would be part of all that soon. And I couldn't help him, couldn't be with him.

Eventually we had to stop the charade of studying; I stood up and left the room, bidding him a good night, then trudged slowly to my room, where I lay upon my unslept-in bed, waiting for time to pass. Every minute crawled by, like molasses in January.

I knew I couldn't go and sleep with him again that night. He wouldn't be sleeping. And I couldn't stand in the way of his destiny. So I lay there in the dark, my eyes burning with unshed tears, my fingers knotted into the quilt, as if I were trying to tie myself down. Perhaps I was.

It was the darkest, coldest part of the night when I heard it. The utter silence of the night seemed to amplify my hearing, as if I was there in the room with him.

Shuffling, whispering, the scrape of a boot across the windowsill in Jasper's room. The creaking of the ivy trellis outside his window as someone climbed down. Footsteps padding quietly across the stable yard, toward the barn…the faint squeal of the stable door hinges…the barely discernable jingle of the bridle as he saddled Star…then quiet hoofbeats, fading with distance.

I couldn't hold myself there any longer.

I tore out of my room, barreling down the hallway and down the stairs, fumbling with the latch on the back door. I had to see him go. I couldn't let him go without one last look!

I stumbled out onto the back porch and down the steps into the dusty stable yard, my nightgown billowing around me like a ghost's shroud. I strained my eyes to see into the darkness of the moonless night, for any glimpse of him.

Finally I caught the movement by the front gate, about half a mile away. A horse, two riders. Jasper and Henry on Star, silhouetted against the velvety black night. Cantering into the great unknown, away from me.

If he'd turned and looked back, he would've seen me there, would've seen me waving frantically, begging him with everything in me to _see me,_ to at least say goodbye. But he never did.

I watched him go until I couldn't see him any longer.

Then I sat down in the dust and drew my knees up to my chest, my chin atop them, huddling into myself against the cold pre-dawn air. A faint breeze kicked up around me, swirling my hair in tangles around my head, and the cold wind made my tears like rivers of ice down my cheeks.

He was gone. I'd been abandoned. I'd never speak to my brother again in this life, I knew.

I closed my eyes against the tears and stayed there in the dark and the dust and I cried and cried and cried.

Big John found me there a little while later; he was always the first one awake and around the farm.

I heard him coming, but I didn't care. It didn't matter. I didn't turn and look at him, or even acknowledge his soft, surprised cry of alarm at realizing that I wasn't just a bundle of rags in the middle of the yard.

He squatted down in front of me, his big, warm, hard hand gripping my chin gently and forcing me to look up at him. He had kind, liquid black eyes, and a broad, honest face that was full of sadness and shock.

"Well, Miss Ginny, what's the matter?" he whispered, glancing around and then back at me. Likely he didn't want anyone to discover me, sitting out there in the yard in my nightgown, dusty and tearstained. "Why're you outside!"

I just shook my head and laid my face back onto my drawn-up knees, trying to ignore him.

Just then, from the house, there was a scream. Mama.

"_Jasper!"_

Footsteps running. Papa yelling. Mama sobbing. They'd found something, probably a note. Seen his empty bed.

Then Mama Dina was there. "Ah, _Lord_, what now!" she muttered, scooping me up into her arms. She was so warm. She cradled me to her breast; my head lolled against her shoulder, my tears starting again.

"He's gone, Mama, he left me all alone!" I finally whispered into her neck, tears wetting her smooth brown skin. I couldn't close my eyes anymore. They burned so much.

She sighed heavily, walking now. "Well, chil', you knew this was a'comin', so don' be surprised," she replied softly, no accusation in her voice despite the words. "John, you go'n get things goin' around here, Master Whitlock ain't gonna be good for nothin' t'day, baby," she called over her shoulder.

John, always so quiet, nodded and went off toward the barn, jamming his hat down atop his head, his stride full of purpose.

Mama Dina carried me into the kitchen, setting me down next to the stove, and proceeded to scrub my face and hands with cold water til I felt the blood beginning to circulate in me again. Then she produced a comb from somewhere and smoothed down my wind-tangled hair, murmuring prayers under her breath the entire time. Occasionally she'd shoot a worried glance toward the kitchen door, as if waiting for one of my parents to come in and catch her cleaning me up. She dashed into the laundry pantry and emerged a moment later with a clean nightgown, and re-dressed me quickly, tossing the dusty, tear-stained one into a hamper of dishtowels.

Finally, I must have met her standards, for she took my face between her big hands and looked me straight in the eye, her face deadly serious.

"Listen to me, Ginny Whitlock," she began, her voice stern. I perked up a bit in surprise; she never called me by my name. "You gots t' be strong, for your mama an' your papa. They's goin' to be terrible sad, an' you know your mama ain't in the best of health."

My eyes widened, remembering.

Ever since my birth, Mama had been sick off and on all the time, and she couldn't walk or stand for long periods of time without getting very tired. The doctors had told her giving birth to me had damaged something inside her, and that she had a weak heart anyway, and she should take care not to become overly excited or anxious. That was one reason we all walked on eggshells around her. I didn't want to make my mother sicker; I knew Jasper had been her favorite, although I was the baby of the family, and it had never bothered me before. It still didn't, I realized abruptly: I just didn't want her to be upset, or any more upset than she already was. I couldn't add to her pain by behaving like a zombie.

I nodded mutely, staring up into Mama Dina's face. Tears threatened again but I fought them back, taking several deep breaths until I gained control, blinking savagely to keep my eyes dry.

She nodded in approval, patting my cheek. "Good girl. You be strong. Don' worry, Mister Jasper will be all right. Jes' listen t'yer dreams, they'll show you."

I sighed, looking down at the floor and nodding absently. I knew the whisperers would tell me things, but it wouldn't be nearly so good as having him nearby. I couldn't watch over him from so far away!

Mama Dina got up from her crouch, pulling me to my feet with her. She turned me to face the stove, pointing over my shoulder at the big cast-iron pot, where she always prepared our morning oatmeal. "You start on that, young 'un, I'm gonna go see t'your Mama for a moment," she admonished me, and bustled out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron.

I sighed again. Perhaps mundane tasks would help me forget my abandonment. So I set myself to the job ahead. I didn't stop at the oatmeal; I sliced the bread and put it to toast in the oven, sliced the apples for the oatmeal, strained the new milk that waited in the stone jar by the kitchen door. I brewed Papa's coffee, and made Mama's tea. I set the table for everyone, putting out the butter and sugar and jam and molasses.

I was right: it did help distract me from my pain. The familiar movements of my body, performing such simple, homey tasks, was comforting. But even at my most distracted, the knowledge of Jasper's absence still ached inside me.

Eventually Mama Dina came back, shaking her head sadly. She stopped, looking at the table and at the breakfast waiting, ready, on the sideboard, her eyes wide and incredulous. "Well, chil', you do seem to be listenin' this mornin'…for once…"

She beckoned me over to her, looking back toward the door again as she furtively pulled something from her apron pocket, pressing it into my hand. I didn't need to look at it to know it was a letter from Jasper.

"Don' tell your Papa I gave this t'you, all right, baby?" she whispered, curling my fingers around the paper. "He had it in his desk, locked up, like he never meant to give it t'you…but I think it's better to have it, right?"

I nodded violently in agreement, shoving the letter into the pocket of my nightgown. "What now?" I whispered back.

Mama Dina shook her head again, biting her lower lip. "Well, y'Mama is in bed. She's terrible sad. Your Papa gave 'er some of that medicine Doc B left for 'er, that laudanum, it'll help 'er sleep." I frowned, I hated that medicine, it made Mama sleep like the dead, and when she did wake she was often dizzy and disoriented. But maybe that was best right now.

"Papa?" I asked, dreading the answer.

She took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. "Well, he's not much better, tho' he's still walkin' around. He said he'll be down f'breakfast anytime now." She pushed me toward the door. "You scoot on now, baby, go get dressed. Then come down an' eat, an' try t'be the good, sweet, strong girl you are, all right?"

I left without another word.

In my room, once the door was shut tight, I allowed myself to crumple to the floor, sliding down the door and leaning against it, clutching Jasper's letter in both hands against my chest. Silent, tearless sobs shook my whole body.

I stayed there for a long while, until the wracking sobs had run their course. I stared down at the letter again, his handwriting so neat and straight as it wrote my name across the front of the envelope.

With trembling fingers I managed to rip it open and pull out the single small sheet of paper.

"**Dear Ginny,**

I know I lied to you about leaving you, and about what I was planning, but please believe me when I say it wasn't to hurt you. It hurt more than you can ever know. I am so sorry for that, but you have to understand that I feel like this is what I have to do, for myself, and to provide you with the kind of example of what a man should be. You are the best thing in my life, and I will come home to you and Mother and Father as soon as I've done my duty to God and Country, with my head held high. I promise I'll write you as often as I can. Please think of me and pray for me, Ginny, that it will be soon when I am able to hear your voice again. I love you very much, little sister.

Jasper.**"**

I struggled with myself to not crumple the paper into a ball, or to tear it to a million shreds. My anguish was turning into anger with every passing second.

_How dare he?? Liar. He didn't even say goodbye, didn't even turn around!_

Immediately the whispers swelled into a raging tide all around me, scolding, admonishing.

_Brave boy. Good man. Don't be awful. Everyone has their place, their destiny._

All the separate voices, talking at once, like I was in a crowded room.

Overwhelmed, I clapped my hands over my ears and screamed. "Be quiet!!!"

They stopped. For a moment, blessed silence reigned. I leaned my head back against the door, my burning eyes sliding shut. I was so, so very tired…

Finally, after a while, one whisper breathed into my ear, hesitant.

_You have a destiny too, you know. _

_Like I care!_ I shouted back at them from within my mind, not wanting to draw any more attention with more noise.

The whisperer persisted. _You have no idea, Virginia. There are many things, wonderful and awful things both, for you in the years ahead. You must be strong. It is very, very important. For you and for your family._

I sighed, scrubbing my hot, aching face with my hands in frustration. "All right, all right…just shut up for a while, please?" I begged them in a whisper of my own.

They didn't reply. I supposed that was their answer.

In the strange, echoing silence, I crawled to my feet and managed to make it to my bed, where I curled up around my pillow, burying my face in it. I lay there for a long time, time drifting by unmarked; I almost dozed.

"Ginny? Sweetheart? Can you…can you come down, to have breakfast with me?"

Papa's voice, muffled from behind my door. He didn't try the doorknob. Even through the wood he sounded different. Older. Sad.

"Please?"

The sound of his own grief suddenly dawned on me. _My god, what a selfish little brat I am!_

I rolled off the bed and ducked into my closet, searching for something to wear. "Of course, Papa, I'll be down in just a moment, I'm dressing!" I called back, trying to make my voice sound like something resembling human.

I heard him sigh, and a sound like something gently press against the door. I think it was him leaning his forehead against the door, wearily. "All right, Ginny. I'll see you downstairs, then." His footstep faded away.

I stared at myself in the mirror that hung on the wall beside my bed. My face was pale and my eyes were bloodshot, but other than that I looked…normal enough. Taking a deep breath, I buttoned my dress and straightened my skirts, pulling my hair back and fixing it atop my head with one of Mama's combs. I pinched my cheeks hard, to bring some color into them. Turned and faced the door, marched out, headed downstairs to eat a breakfast I had absolutely no appetite for.

My time of deceptions and brave faces had begun.


	3. Chapter 3: Agony

Second to minutes, minutes to hours, hours to days, days to weeks, weeks to months…almost a year had passed since Jasper left home.

And the hole left in our home hadn't healed. Actually, it had gotten bigger, begun to fester, and everything was falling apart.

I clung to normalcy as much as possible, but it was hard for a twelve-year-old girl, even one like myself who was a bit more…advanced than normal for her age. My whisperers helped me a great deal during that time. They let me know when things were going on. Told me to prepare myself, gave me insight into things I might never have known.

For example, I knew the first time Papa brought liquor into our house.

I had been in the kitchen preparing a batch of cornbread the way Mama Dina had showed me. I'd started helping a lot more around the house after Jasper left, for many reasons—the biggest of which, I realized, was that it helped to keep my hands busy. "Empty hands's the Devil's playgroun', chil'," Mama Dina had told me countless times since I was small, and I had truly begun to understand the meaning of that old adage. If I could keep my hands and body busy, my mind had much less chance to wander and get itself into trouble.

I stood at the sideboard with the big white mixing bowl, up to my elbows in cornmeal, when I felt a familiar caress brush across the back of my neck, a whisper in my ear.

_Watch your pa, sweetheart. He's bringing trouble into this home._

I glanced over my shoulder automatically, through the big window that hung over the sink, giving a clear view of the stable yard. And I caught him.

I saw Papa walking very quickly and carefully along the edge of the barn, something tucked up under his arm. It was a brown-paper-wrapped package, tied with twine. Normally, I wouldn't have thought anything of Papa bringing a package home: he often did, something ordered from the mercantile down in Houston and shipped up to the farm for him, perhaps some kind of replacement part for a piece of equipment, or a new book or some fabric for Mama. But this was different. I'd never seen his face like that before, pinched and suspicious and a bit afraid, his eyes darting to and fro, making sure no one would see him.

_What on earth does he have there?_ I wondered, then I jerked my head back to face forward again, not wanting him to catch me staring.

I strained my ears listening for him to come into the house through the front door, and was rewarded by the faint squeal of the doorhinges open and close, and the soft footfalls as he entered the house, going down the hall toward his study. I heard the study door open and close too, then silence.

I kept mixing the dough til it was all smooth, then poured it into the greased tin and slid it into the oven. The heat of the woodstove made sweat pop out on my forehead; I straightened with a sigh, rubbing my forearm across my face and stretching my back. I'd already swept and mopped the entire second floor, then put up a batch of plum preserves before starting the cornbread. It had been a long morning.

As I washed my hands at the pump I kept wondering about Papa and his peculiar package. I even asked my whisperers about it, something I didn't often do. They talked enough to me to no necessitate many occasions when I had to ask them anything.

_Poison, Ginny, poison_, was all I got back.

I made a vow to myself to investigate the whole thing after lunch. It was time for Doc B to stop by, to check on Mama. I heard the sound of his cartwheels crunching on the gravel out front; right on time as usual: the clock struck ten AM just as I heard a sharp rap on the front door.

I tossed open the door and greeted Doc B with a smile. He'd always been one of my favorite people.

A tall, wiry man with a shock of bushy, silvery-gray hair that stood out in all directions from his head, he wore wire-rimmed spectacles and smoked a long-stemmed pipe. He also smiled a great deal, which was endearing. And he loved Mama like a daughter.

He'd come from Virginia years and years ago, had even worked for the Mexican provincial government during the time Texas was a Mexican territory. He had a great deal of respect among all the locals, no matter what color, because he treated them all just the same: well.

"Well, good morning, Virginia! Fine day, isn't it?" he fairly sang, tipping his hat at me with a grin. He never called me Ginny. He said he wouldn't disrespect his home by shortening the name like that.

I couldn't help but smile back. "Good morning, Doc, yes, it's a lovely day," I replied, holding out my arms to take his hat and duster. He handed them to me to hang up, then I led him upstairs, to see Mama.

"Come in," came the weak voice from behind her door.

I pushed it open slowly, my eyes adjusting to the darkness inside. Mama refused to let anyone open the curtains when she was having one of her "bad days," which really were usually ""bad weeks" if she were honest. The room was fusty-smelling, the air stale, redolent with the medicines and creams and spirits Mama used to keep herself alive nowadays. It wasn't working terribly well.

"Good morning, Margaret, how are you today?" Doc murmured, setting his bag down on her bedside table.

Mama lay on her side in the big bed, curled up into a fetal position, wrapped tightly in blankets. Her pale face peeped out over the coverlet, her dark blonde hair straggling in lank tangles across the pillows. Her eyes were dark above deep hollows, her lips nearly the same color as her paper-white face.

She seemed to be a little closer to catatonia every day lately. Ever since the letter from the Texas Brigade commander, telling us that Jasper had been sent to Shiloh.

We'd read about the battle in the newspapers. They said over 20,000 men were killed in the space of a few days, and that a fight that had started out as a Confederate victory ended up being a total Yankee rout: thousands dead on both sides, but the Union had ultimately taken the win. Which meant that they had an easy, relatively unopposed route to the Mississippi and the Western states. Including Texas.

But it wasn't the thought of Union soldiers in Texas that had caused the household to descend even deeper into depression. It was the idea that Jasper had been there, amid all that death. We hadn't known for weeks if he was dead or alive, until we got the notice from General John Bell Hood himself (although the letter was written by his secretary, of course), that Jasper had displayed admirable bravery and leadership skills and had been promoted to the rank of Major—and, best of all, that he was being recalled to serve Texas, in Galveston. He was expected there by July 1, God and the weather willing.

But he couldn't come home. Even though he was only a short distance away, a bit more than a day's hard ride, he couldn't come home. And we couldn't come visit him. He would be working, being an officer, and wouldn't possibly have time for visitors.

Anyway, once Mama had read the letter telling us he and his regiment had been sent to what would be eventually called Shiloh, she had slipped even more deeply into her depression. Before, she would get up and tidy herself up a bit, would sometimes join us for lunch and perhaps breakfast, but now she took all her meals in her room—if she ate at all. She couldn't sleep, I heard her crying in the night, and sometimes I heard her screaming at Papa, cursing him, first of all for bringing her so far away from home, and then giving her a son that he'd teach to run away from home before he'd grown into a man.

She never mentioned me.

Doc B glanced around the room, his face twisted into a grimace at the dimness and the smell. "Virginia, open those curtains, please, dear," he ordered me quietly, pointing at them. I rushed to follow his direction before Mama could countermand him.

Light and fresh air poured into the room like a blessing, the dust motes dancing crazily in the new breeze. Mama threw her hands up to cover her eyes, gasping at the brightness. "Burleigh, you're going to blind me!" she cried weakly, turning her face away.

He shook his head in disgust, snapping his black bag open and rifling around the contents. "Margaret, the only reason you'd go blind is by staying inside this hellish cave you've created for yourself." He looked at her, his normally kind blue eyes sharp. "This has gotten out of hand, my dear, you are thoroughly depressed, and you must try to snap yourself out of it. Immediately."

Mama shook her head back and forth, pressing her face into the pillow. When she replied her voice was muffled, but shrill. "Don't tell me how to live my life, you old quack!"

I gasped, my hands flying to my mouth in horror. "Mama!" I cried, glancing over at Doc B to see how he took her horrible words. "You can't talk to Doc like that, he only cares about you!"

Doc B chuckled sardonically, pulling a bottle made of amber glass from his bag and holding up to the light, scrutinizing how much liquid it contained. "Oh, don't worry Virginia, I'm well-used to your mother's abuse, I don't take it personally." He sighed, handing me the bottle. "This should help her appetite. Give her a small glass of it before meals."

I nodded, pocketing the bottle. I was used to monitoring her medicines by now.

He moved over to the bed, motioning for me to follow him. "Now, Margaret, be a good girl and roll over and face us, I need to listen to your heart and then look at your hip, all right?"

She heaved a huge sigh and flopped over onto her back, staring straight up at the ceiling and waiting impatiently for it all to be done with. I was again struck by how skinny she'd become, and how little she resembled my mother anymore.

As was normal, I pulled back the blankets and pulled aside the neckline of her nightgown a bit, enough for Doc to put his stethoscope against her breast. She hissed a little from the cold, jerking away a bit, but then stilled as he listened. After a moment he had me sit her up so he could listen to her lungs, pressing the scope against her back. His eyes met mine across her shoulder, and I saw the worry in them increase as he listened to her labored breathing.

"All right, Margaret, let's check the hip, shall we?"

She ignored his words; I helped roll her halfway over, so he could palpate her left hip through her nightgown, checking the range of motion. Something had happened to her during my birth, apparently; she had constant problems with her hip, making standing and walking for extended periods difficult and painful. Doc clucked approvingly. "Well, at least that's all right, dear, no better but no worse, either, eh?"

He straightened, wiping his hands on a clean cloth, pushing his spectacles up the bridge of his aquiline nose. "So, Margaret, how are we sleeping these days?" he asked amiably.

Mama finally focused on him, her eyes malevolent. "You know exactly how I'm sleeping, Burleigh, don't mock me! My son, my son! He's a butcher and he'll end up dead any day now, I tell you! How do you think I sleep, I don't!" Her voice was acidic, climbing up an octave. "I lay awake and I wonder and worry all night, my mind won't stop! And you refuse to give me what I need to help me sleep, Burleigh, you _refuse_! You're cruel!"

He shook his head sadly, tucking his stethoscope back into his black bag and closing it with a snap before he turned to face her, like he was gathering his courage. "Margaret, we've been back and forth about this too many times for you to keep bringing it up. It's gone from contrariness to genuine mania on your part, I must say, this fixation with laudanum."

She ground her teeth. "But nothing else helps me sleep! Nothing else takes away the things I see!"

Doc B pulled off his spectacles and idly polished the lenses with his handkerchief. "Margaret, you have a bad heart since you were a child, and you have weak lungs. If you take too much, even a little too much, laudanum, you'll end up dead. It suppresses the breathing and heart rate. You'd slip away in your sleep."

Mama snorted. "Would that be so bad?" she hissed, her lips drawn back in a feral grimace that I'd never seen before. I recoiled from that expression: it didn't look human anymore. What had happened to my mother? Where was she? I tried to make myself invisible against the wall; my whisperers chattered and moaned all around me in disapproval and pain.

He put his glasses back on and stared her down, unblinking. "You shall never utter those words in my presence again, Margaret." He turned and looked at me, his eyes sad. "Nor in front of your lovely daughter. She shouldn't hear such ugliness, from you or from anyone else. It is not becoming from a lady of your caliber, my dear."

She flopped back into the pillows, her breath catching in something close to a sob, turning her head away from the light again. After a moment, she nodded, eyes still screwed shut. "I'm sorry," she whispered, barely audible. "It's just…so hard…"

Doc B sighed, picking up his bag. "I shall be back next week, Margaret. Please, when I come back, be able to tell me you've left this room, that you've spent some time in the sun. That you've taken some interest in the members of your family that are still here. They miss you, I wager."

I felt my heart skip a beat, a knot forming in my throat. Yes, I did miss her. Very much.

Mama didn't reply, didn't say goodbye when he left. I lingered for a moment, gathering up the dirty clothes heaped in one corner to take to the laundry. Her voice surprised me as I was just leaving the room.

"Shut the damn curtains before you go, Virginia."

I walked Doc B out to his carriage, handing the black doctor's bag up to him when he settled himself on the seat.

I watched him carefully, ashamed of what had happened upstairs in Mama's room. He seemed preoccupied.

"Doc, I'm sorry about—"

He stopped me with an upraised hand, smiling down at me. "Virginia, your mother is a very sad, very sick woman. She has never been the strongest person anyway, and this whole situation with your brother hasn't helped at all." He gathered up the reins into his hands. "I know she is in a great deal of pain, physically and mentally, and there are times when the sickness is what speaks, not the sick person, you understand?"

I nodded, not knowing what to say.

He rummaged around in his bag for a moment, then handed me another bottle, this time a deep green in color. It was about halfway full of a slightly viscous liquid that coated the inside of the bottle when it moved. "If she has one of her fits, give her an eggcup-sized dose of this, mixed with honeyed tea or something of the sort."

I stared at the bottle. "Laudanum?" I asked quietly, glancing back at the house, even though I knew there was no chance of her seeing. I'd drawn the curtains tight.

He nodded, his lips pressed in a tight, grim line. "Yes, but I won't give it to her. She'd give herself too much, too often. Perhaps you, my wise young friend, can help her be a bit more moderate, eh?"

And with a gallant tip of his hat he was gone, the carriage wheels kicking up a cloud of dust behind them.

I stood in the driveway with the bottle of laudanum in my hands, and it felt like it weighed a ton.

After Doc left I helped Mama Dina finish lunch; the dinner bell always rang promptly at noon, summoning in the slaves and hired help from the fields. They took their tin plates and squatted in the stable yard in the shadows of the lee side of the barn, their mixed voices laughing and joking amongst themselves carried on the breeze to where I stood in the kitchen.

I had dished up cornbread, beans, greens, and fried salt pork for about thirty people, then helped Mama Dina put together a tray for Mama and another for Papa. Mama would only take weak, clear broth and white bread anymore; Papa ate whatever we put in front of him, or at least some of it. He'd been losing weight lately.

Mama Dina lay a white napkin atop Mama's soup tureen and pressed the tray into my hands. "Make sure you give 'er the med'cine, baby," she murmured, pushing me toward the stairs. "Then you come back for your Pa's tray. I've got a berry cobbler in the oven, and I want t' put a piece of it in for 'im, mebbe it'll tempt his app'tite." I nodded and took off upstairs, dread building in my stomach.

I nudged Mama's door open with my elbow and backed quietly into the room. "Mama, lunch!" I murmured softly, setting the tray down beside her bed. She didn't acknowledge me; she still lay facing away from the window, eyes shut, but I knew she wasn't sleeping.

I poured a small glass of the tonic Doc B had given me and placed it next to the soup on the tray." Come, Mama, you need to drink this, please?"

She didn't move.

I sighed and left. I knew the tray would be untouched when I came back for it in a while.

By the time I returned to the kitchen, Mama Dina had slid a bowl with a piece of the cobbler onto Papa's tray next to the pork chop and fried potatoes. She grinned at me, her bright teeth shining in her dark face. "Let's see if this helps 'im get hungry!" she said, handing me the tray.

Once again, I took off, tray in hand, this time for Papa's study.

The door was unlocked, so I backed in the way I had into Mama's bedroom. "Lunch, Papa!" I sang, putting the tray onto his big mahogany desk, glancing around the study for him. Normally he would be sitting behind the desk, reading or writing. But this time, he wasn't there.

Finally I found him, sprawled out on the big leather-upholstered couch in the corner, snoring softly, his arm dangling off the side, knuckles dragging the floor. There was an odd smell in the air, not like Mama's room's musty, enclosed smell—this one was strange, sweet and slightly chemical. Nothing I'd ever smelled before.

The whispers around me surged into an alarmed chorus that was almost overwhelming; I staggered a bit, steadying myself with the edge of the desk. What on earth was wrong with Papa, he never slept in the middle of the day?

I looked around the room for a moment, trying to see if anything was different. The strange package suddenly popped into my mind: it was in here somewhere. What had he been hiding, and was it somehow connected with this odd daytime sleep, and the smell? My eyes traveled along every line of the room, along the stuffed bookcases and pedestals with animal skulls and Indian artifacts on display, the rubber tree in the corner, the dark oil paintings of British hunts and green Southern landscapes he preferred. I saw nothing abnormal or out of place…except…

There in the corner, behind the rubber tree, was a dark shadowy something. I knew immediately that I had found what I'd been seeking, and quietly crossed the room to look. But it really wouldn't have mattered how loud I'd been, I think: Papa never moved, his breathing slow and even, the snore steady and constant.

I moved the potted plant carefully, reaching behind it. I felt the brown paper crinkle under my fingers as I pulled it out.

It was heavy, whatever it was. I crouched down and tugged the paper away. Then the smell slapped me in the face, the same smell I'd noticed before, but strong, so strong. It burned my nose, sweet and chemical and foreign, heady.

It was a big glass jug, full of some clear white liquid. The cork was shoved only halfway in, easily removed. I lifted the wet end of the cork to my nose and immediately jerked it away, screwing my face up in disgust. What was it?

_Poison…_

My heart thudded against the inside of my ribs. Poison? Had Papa just killed himself?

_No._

Then what? I wondered, touching one finger to the cork and lifting it to my tongue.

The taste was like nothing I'd ever experienced before, raw and harsh and slightly sweet, and when I swallowed a trail of heat spread down my throat into my stomach, where it pooled and sat heavily, radiating outward. It was dizzying.

Liquor?

The whisperers murmured their agreement. Home-made liquor. Stronger than a mule-kick, I'd heard Big John and the workers joke about it; they said an old man up in the hills brewed it himself, and it was potent enough to knock even the heaviest drinker on his tail.

I shook my head fiercely. What was Papa doing, drinking? He'd always preached about the evils of hard liquor and how a man must be in control of his senses if he's to be a real man…

Had things really come to this? My mother, a bitter, drug-seeking shadow of a woman, my father, a drunkard? My brother, a killer, perhaps soon to be a ghost? Would I hear their whispers in my mind when they passed away, leaving me there alone? For surely, this couldn't go on much longer. Mama didn't have much time left, and Papa was wasting away, too.  
_What do I do?_ I pleaded with my whisperers. I can't let this go on any more!

They didn't have an answer for me.

For the first time in so long, silence surrounded me. The one time when I dearly wanted their advice, they were silent. What did that mean? That there was nothing I could do?

Perhaps. Or else this was something I had to figure out on my own.

I re-corked the horrid bottle and wrapped it again in its paper, shoving it back behind the rubber plant and moving the plant back into place. I wiped my finger on my skirt until it finally felt clean again, covering Papa's tray with the napkin to keep the flies away. Papa would wake up eventually, I knew, and he'd be hungry.

I stared down at his slack, sleeping face for a moment, my emotions warring within me. What to do?

What can a twelve-year-old girl do to save her family? Even one who hears whispers in the wind and remembers being a baby? What good was all that, if I couldn't help the ones I loved?

_That's part of the burden. Sometimes you know but you can't help. It's just to be prepared. You must be strong_. Finally they spoke, but it was no comfort to me at all. I shook my head, still staring down at Papa's face. He looked so much like Jasper, the same cheekbones and jaw and brow line. I felt my stomach twist within me, remembering his face. His smile, his laugh. His arms around me, making me feel safe. I'd never realized how much I'd needed it, even then…and now, when I needed it more, needed _him_ more, he wasn't there.

It was very, very hard to not be bitter.

I left Papa sleeping there. There was nothing else to do.

The days bled into weeks, and the weeks bled into months.

I stumbled through life as best I could, trying to keep a happy mask on my face, because that was the only thing I could do. It kept trying to slide off all the time, but I just kept yanking it back into place: there was enough open misery in the house without me adding my own atop the stinking heap. I kept my pain to myself, and when I did allow myself to cry, it was at night, into my pillow. My whisperers tried their best to comfort me, but there isn't much comfort in bodiless voices.

Then one day, the letter came.

I remember it clearly. It was October 25, 1862, two o'clock in the afternoon, or roundabouts.

It was a warm day, hot for late October, the wind blowing steadily from the south, hot and dry, scouring everything with dust. The crops had all been harvested, the fields standing stubbly and empty, the sky a washed-out blue-gray overhead, devoid of clouds. I sat on the front porch, my feet tucked up underneath me, trying to concentrate on my French book, although the words made no sense to me. It had been too hot inside for me to study, I'd told Mama Dina, even after I'd opened the curtains and flung the windows wide. It still felt breathless and stuffy, as if I couldn't draw a lungful of air; I'd fled outside.

More than anything, I hated being in that house.

Mama was upstairs, as usual. She never left her room now. She only complained of pain, hardly ate…she was wasting away before our eyes, her body light as a feather. Sometimes I wondered if I opened the window in her room if the Texas wind would blow her away.

Papa was functioning, but he moved about like an automaton, or a puppet with invisible strings. He spent most of his time in his study when he wasn't out on the farm. He'd stopped holding court with the local merchants, stopped attending any but the most crucial meetings of the associations he belonged to. He just stayed in his study, which now permanently stank of moonshine, no matter how often Mama Dina surreptitiously cleaned and aired the room out. He'd lost weight too, his clothes hanging on him loosely, and his cheeks were hollow. I tried to push food on him; he always took it with a wan smile and mumbled thanks, and ended up never eating: I would find his tray or plate untouched, covered in flies.

The servants and slaves went about their tasks as usual, but they all stepped much lighter, and talked less, with hardly any laughter anymore.

It was as if someone had died, and everyone was in mourning.

I heard something in the distance and looked up, straining my eyes to see what was coming. I saw the dust billowing up around the shape of a horse and rider, heading in from the front gate, who was bent low over the neck of his mount and riding hard.

Not good. I felt a cold shiver trickle down my spine, and my stomach clenched like a fist inside me. Only bad news travels that fast.

I stood up and smoothed my skirts down, putting my forgotten French book aside, waiting resolutely for the rider to enter the yard.

Finally he was sliding to the ground and striding toward the house, pulling his leather satchel over his neck and reaching inside. He wore a grey Confederate uniform.

The cold shiver escalated to a full-blown shudder. My knees turned to water.

_Brace yourself, Virginia._ The voices surged around me, and I felt, for the first time in many, many months, the ghostly touch. As if they were surrounding me, buttressing me against a coming onslaught.

The man gave me a short bow and a curt salute. "Good afternoon, miss, is your father here?" he said, pulling a letter from his satchel.

I stared at that envelope in his hands for a long time, wordless, my tongue feeling glued to the roof of my mouth, which was as dry as the desert. I finally just had to nod, biting my lip to try to make myself come out of the sudden fog that threatened to envelop my mind.

There was only one reason a uniformed courier would come to our home.

Jasper was dead.

Mama Dina appeared behind me, her big, warm hand cupping my shoulder, the spicy smell of her enveloping me as she pulled me back against her. She held out her hand to the man over my shoulder. "Give me that, sir, I'll give it to the Master, he's sleeping now. He's been ill." Her voice was grave, sad.

The soldier shook his head in refusal. "I have orders to give this to Jasper Whitlock II directly, sorry, ma'am."

She sighed and bowed her head in defeat. "This gonna kill 'im, sir," she whispered, then turned and went inside to find my father. I wondered idly if she'd be able to wake him from his drunken stupor.

While we waited the interminable ten minutes or so it took for my father to appear, disheveled and disoriented, in the doorway behind me, the courier and I stared at each other with frank curiosity.

"That letter says my big brother is dead, doesn't it?" I finally asked him flatly.

His eyes widened. "Little girl, I…" He stopped, licked his lips. "I honestly don't know," he finally murmured, his thumb caressing the edge of the letter nervously. Then he closed his eyes and shook his head. "But these are never good, sweetheart, I don't have a nice job."

I laughed, a sound with no humor in it. And I said something cruel, something I immediately regretted.

"Well, at least you're safe and sound, delivering letters, while those other boys like my brother are out there getting shot, so I suppose you have a better job than you realize."

He went white as a sheet. My whisperers hissed at me in reproof. I flushed in shame, and mumbled an apology to the poor man. It wasn't his fault that he'd been given this particularly thankless, unwelcome job.

Then Papa was there, brushing roughly past me, smelling sour. His jacket was buttoned wrong, his shirt rumpled, his hair flying in every direction. He held out his hand imperiously."Give it to me, soldier. Let's not put this off anymore, shall we?" he said harshly. His voice had changed since he'd started drinking, losing its former warm timbre.

The soldier handed over the letter with trembling fingers, his eyes avoiding mine or Papa's. Once again, I felt Mama Dina behind me, her arms enfolding me and drawing me back into her warmth. I closed my eyes, hearing Papa tear open the letter.

There was a long silence; Papa drew a deep, shuddering breath.

"Thank you, soldier, your work here is done. Get yourself back to wherever you belong." His voice was…throbbing, overflowing with pain.

I kept my eyes closed, but still, the world reeled around me, like I had been spun around time and time again, til I felt nauseous. The whisperers murmured all around me, so many voices I could barely understand them, talking all at once, but saying different things, not in concert as they were when they had something important to say.

It was like they were confused.

_He's not dead. Yes he is. No, but worse than dead. Cursed. Better gone. But she should know the truth! Shut up, she's a child, leave her alone! Some things are better left untold…_

I opened my eyes and looked at Papa, who still stood in front of me. The courier was mounting his horse slowly, as if in pain. Papa's head was bowed, his shoulders slumped, his arms hanging uselessly at his sides, the letter crumpled in one hand.

Then he turned around and charged past me, up the stairs and into the house, and I heard his study door close with a loud bang.

I didn't see him again for about a week.

The letter lay in the dirt, stirred by the hot breeze. I stared at it, mesmerized, frozen by my agony and confusion and indecision. Should I pick it up?

Finally my curiosity won against my indecision, and I broke out of Mama Dina's arms and bent down to pick up the paper. I smoothed it out against my thigh until it was flat enough to read.

"Mr. and Mrs. Whitlock,

"It pains me to send you this notice, that your son, Jasper Charles Whitlock III, was lost in action on October 4, 1862.

"Major Whitlock was sent with a column of evacuees from Galveston, charged with delivering them safely to Houston in the face of the Union advance into Galveston Harbor. He delivered the civilians in the evening of October 4, and set off again the same evening to return, at my request, to Galveston immediately. I considered him a valuable member of my staff who could not be spared for any length of time. Had I known there was any danger on the road, I would have bade him stay in Houston overnight.

"The next day, when he had not yet arrived back in Galveston, inquiries were sent. His staff members, Newton and Henry Berryman, said that Major Whitlock had left them in Houston, due to Henry Berryman's illness. He was not seen again.

"His horse, Star, was found a few miles north of Galveston. She was unhurt and all of Major Whitlock's gear was untouched. However, there was blood found on the road not far from where the horse was discovered, and Major Whitlock's pistol and dog tags were found on the side of the road, along with numerous sets of footprints and evidence of a scuffle. It was determined, based on this evidence, that Major Whitlock had met with foul play, and was more than likely killed. It is unknown whether it was agents of Union aggression who committed this foul act, or whether it was roadside bandits, but we are very sure that Major Whitlock has passed away.

"Please accept my condolences, and the condolences and prayers and well-wishes of the entire Confederate staff located in Galveston. Major Whitlock was a fine officer and soldier; he exemplified the best characteristics of a Southern gentleman, and always comported himself with honor, dignity, and courage. He will be sorely missed by his peers, subordinates, and superiors.

"He has been posthumously awarded the Southern Cross of Honor for his valor, steadfastness, and his unfailing moral character. The medal and all of his personal affects shall be forwarded to you as soon as possible.

"Again, I am very sorry to be the bearer of these sad tidings, and my prayers and thoughts are with you at this sad time.

"Sincerely,

Colonel Joseph J. Cook, Confederate Army, Galveston, Texas."

I crumpled the letter in my hands, like Papa, but more: I wadded it up and compressed it until it was a rock-hard little ball, which I heaved as far from me as I could. I watched the wind catch it and blow it away. I never found it again…but then again, I never looked.

Mama Dina reached out and caught me again, as if I would blow away like the letter.

"Quiet now, chil', quiet now…" she whispered into my ear, holding me tight, even when I tried to shrug her off. Her strong hands turned me around to face her, and she crushed me against her, murmuring comforting nonsense into my ear. I fought against her for a moment: I wanted to run, run and hide, run and scream, tear my hair, shout at the sky. Then, as if someone had blown my rage out like a candle, I felt all the anger drain out of me, and the sadness flooded in, taking up the empty spaces.

I collapsed against her, burying my face in the calico of her bodice, and I wept.

I wept and wept until the world went black. I never felt it when she swung me up into her arms and carried me into the house.

I never knew who told Mama. I doubt it was Papa, because as I mentioned, he never left his study for a week's time. I know it wasn't myself; I couldn't bear to speak at all, keeping to my room, grieving in silence. I suppose it must have been Mama Dina, or perhaps Doc B, who came around the next day, to check on Mama as scheduled. Actually, the more I consider it, it must have been Doc who told her, based on the timing of the way things happened.

I was lying on my side in my room, the curtains drawn against the sunlight, curled up in a ball around a pillow. Not just any pillow—Jasper's pillow. I imagined I could smell him on it. It had taken on the shape of my body molding around it, and was permanently wet with my tears. My eyes were closed, my eyelashes gummy with shed tears, but I heard it when my door opened, heard the soft footfalls. It was a man, women's footsteps sounded different.

I felt someone sit down next to me on the bed, felt a warm, rough thumb trace my cheek and brush my tangled, sweaty hair from my face.

"Virginia," Doc whispered, patting me. "Ginny. Open your eyes, sweetheart."

After a moment's consideration, warring with myself, trying to decide whether to be petulant or obedient, I finally opened my eyes, the lashes sticking together for a moment. His kind, worn face looked down at me, the mouth pinched with worry, the pale blue eyes narrowed with concern, the face lined with sadness.

"I'm so sorry, Ginny."

I closed my eyes again. I didn't want to hear it. "Go away, please, Doc," I managed in a strangled voice, and turned my face again into Jasper's pillow.

Once again he patted my shoulder and stoked my hair. "Darling, you have to get up. Your family needs you, after all. Life…" He stopped, sighed. "Well, life goes on, even when we don't want it to, after all."

I looked up at him, bewildered. "What?" I managed to sit up, my body stiff, the muscles protesting the sudden movement after so many hours unmoving. "What do you mean, Doc? Why on earth should I care about my family?"

He stared at me, confused. "Well, Virginia, they do need you, you are all they have left, after all—"

I stopped him with a derisive laugh, shaking my head. "Doc, have you even noticed anything at all going on around here since Jasper left?" I asked him, amazed, and began ticking off the relevant points on my fingers. "My mother has turned into a drug-seeking invalid, who doesn't care about anything anymore. She never eats, she only cries and screams, and she blames everyone else for all her problems. She doesn't care about me: Jasper was her only pride. It's like I don't even exist."

I wrinkled my nose in disgust. "And my father has turned into a drunk who doesn't care about anything but his bottles. He also never really cared about me, he only cares that Jasper is gone, and he's left with a miserable girl child who can't even carry on his family name.

"The only family I have are my black nanny and her husband, and no one cares about them—even though they're the ones making sure this farm doesn't go to ruin.

"Jasper ran away without a care for what it would do to the rest of us, especially not thinking about the chance he might never come home. He ran away like a thief in the night, and covered up his cowardice in not telling us what he was doing with big fancy words. He destroyed us all, to go away and play hero: and now he's dead. And none of us will ever get any better!"

My voice had been building in intensity and volume with each word, until I was screaming at Doc; my face was red, and I'm sure I must have sprayed him with spittle in my vehemence. The whisperers, once again, hissed at me in reproach.

I slumped back against the headboard and bundled the pillow against my chest, burying my face in it, fresh tears starting again. "I'm sorry, Doc, I'm so sorry…I know you're just trying to help…"

He sighed and patted me again. "Don't worry yourself, Ginny." Then he slowly got up from my bed and left quietly, shutting the door behind me. I heard his heavy footsteps ascending the stairs to my mother's room.

As I lay there I wondered about Mama, although I found it hard to feel anything for her but a distant sadness, almost as if I was obliged by the burden of blood relationship to do so. I'd grown so tired of her nonsense over the past year, and was hurt by how effectively she ignored me, wounded my father, and had dedicated herself to wasting away. I wondered if anyone had told her about Jasper yet.

Screaming. Glass breaking.

I sat up, eyes wide, looking up at the ceiling where the noises were coming from. Mama's room lay directly over mine.

"No, no no no no no no….!!!!!!!"

It was her voice, Mama's voice, shrill and broken. More glass breaking. What was happening, was she breaking windows? I heaved myself from my bed and threw open my door, my former feelings of disgust forgotten: my mother was screaming and in pain, and I had to get to her. I took the steps up to her room two at a time, slipping once as I stepped on the hem of my skirt, falling and bashing my knee into the step, but I kept going, until I was there before her door.

Inside, it was like a tableau out of some dramatic play.

Doc B stood to the side, horror-struck, his hands outstretched toward Mama, his mouth agape.

Mama was standing beside the window, which had been shattered. At her feet was the mirror that had hung beside her bed, shards of glass everywhere, throwing crazy reflections onto the ceiling and walls. She was in her white nightgown, which hung on her bony frame, and now was stained with blood: her hands, held out from her sides, were slashed to ribbons. Blood was everywhere.

While I stood there, frozen in shock, she lifted her hands to her ashen face and pressed the bleeding palms to her cheeks; she began shaking her head wildly, squeezing her dark-ringed eyes shut. Her long, tangled dark-blonde hair hung lankly down her back and over her shoulder, and stuck in strands to the blood on her cheeks.

She dug her fingernails into her cheeks, raking downward, scratching deep weals into her white skin, and I stared at the bright, bright blood that welled there and tumbled down the breast of her nightgown.

I had never seen madness before, but I recognized it. I could even smell it in the room, hot and metallic like the blood, could feel it breathing down the back of my own neck. I fought against the rising gorge in my stomach, to not vomit, to not join my mother in her insanity.

Her blue eyes popped open again and she screamed, a thin wail, and dropped to her knees amid the shards of glass. I knew her knees were cut.

Suddenly, it was as if the ties holding me still were cut. I had to move.

"Doc, please, help me!" I cried, rushing forward toward Mama, who had sunk down on her knees, her arms wrapped around herself protectively, sobbing wordlessly, rocking. I swept aside some of the glass with my foot to clear a spot, and I sat down next to Mama, taking her into my arms.

"Shhh….shhh, Mama, it'll be all right, I promise, It'll be all right…"

Stupid, meaningless words. What would be all right? Would he ever come home again? But I had to say something, she was on the verge of completely losing herself to the abyss. I saw it in her desperate eyes when she looked up at me. She didn't even seem to recognize me at first.

"Vi-Virginia?" she whispered, blinking owlishly. I had to force myself to look into her eyes, to ignore the bleeding gashes she's torn in her own face, to ignore the blood that stained us both now.

My whisperers surged around us both, I felt their touch. They wept too. But still, some of them, some were…dissentful, arguing, almost. Like the day before, when the letter announced Jasper was dead—as if something was wrong. As if perhaps he wasn't dead?

I squashed the wild surge of hope that swelled up in me and concentrated on the matter at hand: my mother.

Doc B was there, his strong hands lifting us up as one. He carefully gathered Mama up into his arms and lay her back on the bed, kicking aside glass as he went.

"Oh, my Lord above, what have you done, Doc!" Mama Dina's voice came from behind me; I turned to her, where she stood halfway through the doorway, her fist pressed against her lips as she tried not to say anything else. Her dark almond-shaped eyes were full of tears. "Don't you know, it was bes' not t'tell 'er?" she whispered. "It's nothin' but unkindness, she already knew 'e was dead, in 'er heart!"

Doc shook his head firmly. "No, madam, she must be told the truth, so she can deal with things and get back to herself. She has mourned long enough, before the boy was even dead—now she must learn to live for the family she still has, forgotten all this time." He looked down at Mama and sighed, then began digging in his black bag, which lay forgotten by the bed.

He pulled out the familiar bottle. Laudanum. He measured a good strong dose into a cup, which he then diluted with some water from the bedside pitcher. He sat down on the edge of the bed next to Mama, who was curled up into a fetal position on her side, sobbing into the pillows again. Her blood was everywhere.

Tenderly, he rolled her onto her back and slipped one arm under her head, lifting her up enough to drink without choking. "Drink this, Margaret dear. It will let you sleep for a while, so we can fix you up, all right? Sleep, and don't dream," he whispered.

She eagerly drank the contents of the cup down, barely grimacing at the awful, bitter taste. After only a few heartbeats I saw the change creep over her, as the medicine took affect: her face and body relaxed, her mouth slackened as sleep claimed her. All my distaste for the drug remained, but I was still fervently grateful for its ability to take away Mama's pain for a while.

Doc stood up with a little groan, pressing his hands to the base of his spine, shaking his head again. "I'm getting too old for this," he muttered, then began rummaging through his bag again. He glanced over at me and Mama Dina, who had stood motionless, watching. "Virginia, please go clean yourself up, and find some clean clothes and such for your mother. Get someone to come clean up this glass, and one of the men to fix your mother's window. We can't have her catching cold." I nodded and moved toward the door, still looking back over my shoulder at Mama.

His gaze shifted to Mama Dina. "And you, Madam, please go fetch some boiled water, clean rags, and some of your witchy herbal remedies, I need something to help disinfect these wounds and make sure they don't scar." He looked down at Mama's sleeping face with resigned affection. "Whenever she wakes from this stupor, she'd be horrified if she had scars on her face. She's always been vain."

Mama Dina barked a little laugh and we both went downstairs together.

And so, strangely, ended the grieving—and the healing began.


	4. Chapter 4: Adapting, part 1

Chapter 4: Adapting

Before I knew it, a year had passed since the day we received the letter telling us that Jasper was dead.

At first, in the mind-numbing weeks after the letter, time passed slowly, every moment measured in agony, drawn out endlessly. The hands of the old grandfather clock in the foyer seemed to move in slow-motion. Everyone grieved. A sudden fury of unseasonal storms pounded the area; it was as if the sky itself was in mourning, the rain dripping from the leaden sky like tears. My whisperers buzzed all around me day and night, preoccupied for my mental health, I think.

After Mama's bloody breakdown, things began to speed up. The urgency to care for her made me have to pay attention and think, things which were quite painful to do at first: paying attention and thinking revealed all the details of grief, brought them into sharp focus, where my previous depressed stupor had blurred the lines of my sadness, allowed me to ignore the shape of them. My whisperers were overjoyed at my emerging from the haze. I tried to stay focused on Mama and getting her better.

Doc had sewn her up carefully, doing everything in his power to make sure the wounds would heal cleanly. Mama Dina applied her salves and washed the cuts several times a day; even Doc B was complimentary of how well her home remedies worked, although he'd usually been disdainful of her "folk medicine" in the past. I watched her carefully, fascinated: I wanted to learn what she was doing, and Mama Dina promised to teach me. It gave me something to look forward to and to occupy my mind during the dark hours when I was supposed to be sleeping.

Every day I would rise before the sun—because I rarely slept more than a couple of hours at a time anyway—and wash up and dress. Then I would steal up the stairs into Mama's room, to check on her: I had a morbid fear of opening her door one morning and finding her gone, or worse. But she was always there, pale face turned to the wall, her thin chest rising and falling rapidly with her shallow breathing. The dim pre-dawn light didn't show her wounds so well; it was easy for me, at those times, standing in her doorway, to imagine that the horrible day of the broken glass and madness had been just my imagination. Then she might stir and turn her face toward the window, and the light might capture the edge of her sutures, and I would be reminded again of reality.

Reality was truly offensive to me for a very long time.

I would close her door and go down to the kitchen, where Mama Dina was always waiting for me. She's smile at me and hand me an apron; we'd wash and cut and fry and bake and stir in companionable silence, our skirts whispering around our legs as we danced around each other in our separate trips to the oven, the pantry, the cellar, the sink. Sometimes she would sing, old spirituals and gospel songs the slaves and workers sang at the Sunday worship services down by the river, the songs she'd sung to me when I was a baby. I loved the sound of her voice, smooth and warm and brown, like her, sweet as molasses.

She'd prepare Mama and Papa's trays for me, and I would deliver them, as always.

Papa was still drinking, although he seemed to be slowly weaning himself off the horrid stuff. He spent more time awake, there were far fewer drunken afternoons anymore; sometimes he would be waiting for me, sitting at his desk, reading or writing, and he would smile at me and thank me quietly as I set his food down before him. Then he would go back to whatever he was doing, ignoring me so completely it was as if I were never there. No matter how many times it happened, his indifference to me stung me to the bone every time.

I felt like an orphan, even though both of my parents were alive.

At first, Mama was as bad as always; worse, in some ways, actually. She was in a lot of pain as the cuts healed, and, as Doc B had said, her pride and vanity seemed to hurt worse than anything else.

I would push open her door carefully and poke my head inside, seeing if she was awake. Sometimes she wasn't; those times, I would set her tray down and then open her curtains a bit, letting in some light. I'd empty her night bucket (for she never used the outhouse), pick up her dirty clothes, sometimes put fresh flowers out for her, layout a clean nightgown and underthings on her dresser, put a clean basin of water and washcloths beside her bed. Then I'd leave her to wake up on her own, for stirring her from a peaceful sleep was not to be even thought of. Once I had done that, and her screams had chased me from the room, all the way down the stairs.

She had good days and bad. The bad days involved her burrowing into the covers again, sometimes weeping, sometimes screaming into the pillows. On those days, I tried to stay with her, to make sure she didn't try to hurt herself again. Sometimes I had to give her laudanum, to calm her. I despised it. But it helped her sleep, and that was a blessing to everyone in the house.

Sometimes, though, she'd be awake, and it would be a good day. I'd find her sitting upright in the bed; she'd smile a little at me, though I knew it hurt her face to do it. So pale against the white pillowcases, the healing pink furrows on her cheeks the brightest things about her, she looked so young and defenseless and sad, like a wilted flower.

"Good morning, Virginia," she'd murmur, and beckon me in. I would bring her breakfast to her, and sometimes sit with her while she pushed the food around the plate with her fork, occasionally lifting a tiny bite to her mouth. She had no appetite, and only ate to please me and Doc and Mama Dina. Then I'd help her wash and dress, and change her bedclothes and do the other little chores I always did; while I moved quietly about the room, her big, hollow eyes would follow me around, as if afraid I would vanish. I thought it a bit funny, in a sad sort of way: she and I were both afraid of the same thing, it seemed. We were both terrified the other would disappear.

I felt I had lost my father forever, but somehow, in the midst of all that madness and pain, I had found my mother, and she had found me, and we were a great comfort to each other.

On those good days, when she was waiting for me in the mornings, I would linger with her until Mama Dina came in to tend her cuts. Bustling in with a blaze of bright color and the ever-present scent of cinnamon and cloves that just _was_ her, Mama Dina lit up the room with her presence.

"Well, look who's awake and alive dis mo'ning!" she'd crow, setting down her bundle of herbal remedies, bandages, and the jug of purified water on the nightstand. She'd reach out and touch Mama's forehead, searching for traces of fever; then her dark fingers would ever-so-gently follow the lines of stitches on Mama's face and arms, checking for the warmth that betrayed infection. It never was there.

I'd assist as she tended Mama, who would sit quietly and still, childlike under Mama Dina's touch. I knew she was horribly embarrassed by what she'd done to herself; every day that passed since that breakdown, she'd regained a little more of her sense of propriety. She'd sometimes blush fiercely and squeeze her eyes shut, as if trying not to see us seeing _her_.

Our routine lasted for several months, til Mama's wounds were healed, and the scars on her face had begun to fade. Both Doc and Mama Dina proclaimed that within a year no one would be able to tell anything had ever happened to Mama, unless they went close enough to kiss her—and the chances of that happening with anyone but us were slim, they laughed. She even smiled a bit at that.

Then, one day, I came in with the breakfast tray and she was waiting for me, but she wasn't in bed. She was standing by the window, looking out over the wheat fields, the morning sunlight catching golden glints in her already-brushed hair, which had been braided and pulled up in some of her beautiful combs. She was dressed in a light blue dress, one I had seen her wear last year, before Jasper left home, and thought looked wonderful on her: it matched her eyes. Now, after so long in the grips of a depression that had robbed her of her appetite, the dress hung on her already-slight frame. But anything was an improvement over the perpetual nightgown and disheveled, tangled hair. I almost dropped the tray.

She turned and looked at me, smiling. "Good morning, Virginia," she said softly, and came toward me. I stared at her, dumbfounded, frozen in place; seeing her up and moving was like seeing a ghost. My whisperers fairly crowed for joy all around me.

Mama took the tray from my numb fingers and set it down on her dresser; then, wonder of wonders, she reached out and pulled me to her, wrapping her arms around me.

How long had I waited for this: the smell of her was the same as I remembered when I was just a tiny baby. I buried my face in the blue calico of her breast and closed my eyes, my senses alive with the awareness of her, that she was _back_. Finally. I couldn't help it; I started to cry, my tears soaking her dress. I was only fourteen, after all. Still a girl.

"Shhh…" she whispered, patting my back, like she had when I was a baby. How familiar she was, the smell and feel of her, even though she was so painfully thin, I felt like I could pick her up and throw her up into the air and she might drift away on the wind. I was smaller than her, but next to her hollow-boned lightness, I felt as solid as a stump. "Shh, my darling, it's all right."

I had no words. I was just so happy. I didn't feel like an orphan any more.

We stood there for a long time. Finally, I pulled back a bit and looked up at her. She had been crying too, I saw, and immediately felt a pang of alarm: I didn't want her sliding back into the swamp of her depression, I didn't know if I could stand losing her again. She must have recognized what I was thinking and laughed, squeezing me tightly for a moment in reassurance.

"Don't worry, sweetheart, I'm not going back into that dark place again. Promise." She crooked her little finger at me, and I hooked my own through it in a gesture from my childhood: the most serious of promises, never to be broken. I nodded in understanding.

"Promise."

And we laughed.

***

After that day, time sped up even more.

It seemed like, with Mama's return to life, the very air itself had returned; we all had been slowly smothering, like fish out of water gasping for breath. When she came back to herself, we were returned to the water, able to breathe again, and were fiendishly grateful for it. The servants and slaves were able to stop tiptoeing around; the normal noises of the house and farm slowly resumed.

Mama came back to life with a vengeance. Although Mama Dina had done everything she always did, and our house had never suffered for cleanliness or order, Mama decided it was time to do a deep, intensive cleaning.

For more than a week we beat rugs, washed curtains and duvet covers and tablecloths, polished silver, waved furniture, boiled and starched the white linens, swept away the cobwebs, organized the pantry and cellar, washed windows, blacked iron, and scrubbed walls and baseboards and floors. My neck and lower back ached, my fingers were stiff and red from lye and scrubbing, my knees hurt from kneeling…But I was happy to feel those things. It finally felt like I was alive again, like my family was alive.

She made the men keep busy, too: all the stables were cleaned, every stall mucked out and scrubbed, every animal checked over by farrier and veterinarian, the grain silo emptied and cleaned, every piece of tack and farm equipment polished or sharpened or retooled. Mama even had the hired men dig a new outhouse trench and move the little building to the other side of the back yard. I had never seen so much activity in such a short period of time; it was like spring planting, summer harvest, and the fall cattle drive all rolled into one.

In all that hustle and bustle, I hardly had time to miss Jasper, except in the nights.

I would lie in bed and take an inventory of every sore spot, ache, and cramp in my body, my body exhausted by labor, but my mind awake and free to wander. My whisperers would murmur to me in the dark, tell me things like they had when I was younger, about their times as Earthbound (which is what they called people like myself). I think they were trying to keep my thoughts from exploring places best left unknown and find those dark corners where the demons still lurked.

I often wondered about the strange conflict I'd sensed in them, upon hearing of Jasper's death. I asked the whisperers silently about it, but they never gave me a good answer. So my curiosity, of course, was piqued by this: they had never refused to tell me something before. I sensed that something very strange was happening, and I wanted to know what it was urgently. They never did answer my question; I had to find out the reason for their reticence on my own, much later on in my life, completely by accident.

Even with Mama coming out of her stupor and revitalizing the farm, Papa remained taciturn and unresponsive. He did drink less, I know that much (I had been keeping a tally of the number of empty bottles for quite some time), but he never seemed interested in joining "real life" again. He sat in his study for long hours, writing, reading, staring off into space, sleeping.

Then, one lovely April morning, Mama decided she'd had enough of his silence. Now _that_ was a day to remember.

We had been finishing up the morning chores; the house sparkled like a new penny, the spring breeze stirring the freshly-washed curtains, the smell of new flowers and freshly-turned soil outside in the fields drifting in on the wind. Mama was wearing a new dress, the color of primroses; she had gained a little weight, she wasn't nearly so pale anymore, and the scars scarcely showed. She was lovely, I thought.

She had been standing at the front door, looking out across the front lawn with a familiar expression on her face: dissatisfaction. I'd seen her look at the lawn like that so many times as I grew up. I knew, when I saw that expression, that she was remembering the rolling green manicured lawns of her Virginia childhood home—and was sorely wishing for such a thing here. But Texas isn't the place for a lush lawn and garden, at least not without a great deal of frivolous watering and backbreaking work from some poor gardener who should be working the crops. Papa had never allowed it.

"I swear, I shall have flowers this year, if it kills me!" Mama said, punching her fist into the palm of her other hand in a fierce gesture, her chin lifted, her jaw clenched in determination. "Roses and sunflowers and anything else I can get to grow. I shall."

Mama Dina and I, who had been standing behind her, exchanged a cautious look: where was this going?

She whirled to face us; our eyes widened in unison.

"And you shall help me!" she declared forcefully, pointing at myself and Mama Dina in turn. "I must find the proper seeds, and you can help me plant and tend them. Not a big garden, something small. But something beautiful." She sighed. "I need something beautiful."

I nodded mutely; Mama Dina chuckled and disappeared into the kitchen. I envied her. When Mama decided on something it usually happened—and it wasn't often pleasant for those she chose to make her workhorses.

"Follow me, Virginia," she said, brushing past me into the hallway, trailing her familiar scent of rosewater and linen behind her. I followed. "I intend to wake the sleeping giant."

My stomach suddenly did a backflip when I realized what she meant.

Mama stopped in front of Papa's study door and went very still for a moment, biting her lip, as if she were nervous. They had hardly said ten words to each other in the past several months. I wondered what she was going to say now, that had her so flustered.

She took a deep breath, as if preparing herself, and opened the door.

"Jasper Charles!" she called into the dim, musty-smelling room. "Jasper Charles, you wake up _this instant_. I need to speak to you."

I just stared.

He didn't respond. Mama's eyes narrowed in frustration. She called him again. No response.

She sighed. Brushed back a hair from her forehead. Straightened herself up to her complete height, squaring her shoulders. I was somehow reminded of a warrior preparing for battle. She reached down and grabbed handfuls of her skirt, her knuckles white. And then she went into the study, closing the door firmly behind her.

The sounds of breaking glass shattered the silence a few moments later. My eyes, which I am sure had become as wide as saucers, fairly fell out of my head. My heart hammered in shock; my mouth went dry. I stood, paralyzed, watching that closed door, listening, waiting.

The crashing went on for a few minutes, and was quickly joined by Mama shouting and then Papa's voice, sleepy at first, then becoming louder and angrier as he started telling her to stop, what was she doing, crazy woman…Mama screamed right back, calling him an old drunk fool, cursing his useless laziness…

I just kept staring at that door, waiting for something horrible to happen. I wondered if Papa would get the old flintlock pistol he kept in his desk drawer and shoot Mama in a drunken rage. I wondered if Mama would smash one of those moonshine bottles down on Papa's bleary head. The noise kept coming.

"Jasper Charles Whitlock, I am sick and tired of you wasting away in here for all this time. You're a mess. You've almost ruined yourself. Enough of this horrible stuff"—_crash_—"and come out and do something! You have a vow to keep! You promised me, back when you told me you were dragging me off to Texas, that I'd have a garden one day, and that day has come!"

I licked my lips, blinked. Waited.

"Margaret, I swear, if you don't put that down!" _Crash._ "I said stop it!" _Crash _again. Then silence. I wondered if she'd run out of bottles. I hoped so. "Margaret, you're crazy!"

She laughed, a very grim sound. "Yes, I am. Or at least I have been. And it's not a pretty thing. This ends now, husband, or I swear, I shall pack our daughter up and go back East, War or no War, and never see your good-for-nothing, drunken face again!"

_Crash_. Then silence.

And then I heard something I had never heard before in all my life. With all my memories of my infancy and childhood, I had never, ever heard that sound before.

Papa was crying.

It frightened me a little at first: the man who had always been the strong, gentle giant, the man who had brought me books and beautiful things when I was small, the man who everyone had admired…before his breakdown…the one who was so intelligent and in control…He was weeping broken, ragged sobs like a wounded child.

My knees turned to water, my eyes prickled with my own tears. I stepped closer to the door, pressed my cheek against the cool wood of it, listening.

The sobs went on for a while, quieting; they sounded muffled, somehow. Then I realized that Papa was crying into Mama's shoulder, like I had done before. And she was patting his back like he was a baby and shushing him, like she had with me. I saw it clearly in my mind's eye: the pair of them, standing in the dimness of the study, surrounded by broken glass, a big man weeping into the neck of his wife, who held him tightly, her own tears wetting his hair.

"I…I never got a chance to tell him how proud I was of him…how glad I was to have him as a son…" Papa whispered. "I miss him, Margaret."

My tears broke free, poured down my face; I leaned my forehead against the door, squeezing my eyes shut, trying to control myself. Jasper's face, so clear it was as if he stood before me, hovered behind my eyelids, smiling at me.

All the hurt I'd been pushing down and ignoring screamed at me, unbound. How I missed him. And also, among the hurt at his loss: the _guilt_. I'd been trying so hard to ignore it. The guilt of that last, horrible letter I'd sent him, telling him all those awful things. That was the last thing he had ever heard from me. And I could never undo it. I could never take back those words. I could never change the pain I'd caused. He was never going to know how much I regretted it.

After a long time, there was silence from behind the door. I stepped back, nervous, wiping my eyes.

Then the door opened, and there was Papa.

He, like Mama, seemed to have shrunk over the long months of his drunken depression. His skin was ashen and seemed to hang loosely on him, like his clothes. His hair was dull, his beard fiercely overgrown, his eyes bloodshot. The smell of him was dank, sweat and unwashed clothes and hair and the sour-sweet smell of the alcohol.

But he was looking at me. _Really_ looking at me. For the first time in months, he saw me, standing there in the hallway, his eyes fierce and alive. I saw tears gleam in his crazy beard like jewels, and for some reason it made me giggle.

He smiled then, a big, real smile: not one of the false, placating smiles he might give me when I brought him his food. The kind of smile I remembered so vividly from my infancy and onward, the sheer delight of seeing me so evident. He held out his arms to me. Inviting me in.

I didn't care that he smelled old and fusty. I didn't care that it had been months. All that mattered was that moment, when I rushed into those familiar arms and flung mine around him, clinging to him for dear life, as if he were my lifeline.

He pressed his lips to the top of my head and whispered into my hair.

"I will never leave you again, Virginia."

And so, I had my family back again.

All it had taken was a little broken glass and a lot of screaming—but we were together again. Ragged, beaten by the storms of what we'd been through, missing something, someone, so very important that we'd never be able to forget the gaping hole Jasper's absence was…We were like castaways from a shipwreck, clinging to the rock of safety that we made for each other.

But it was enough. It was a start.

Like Mama, Papa came back with a vengeance. He went into the bedroom and came back out again a while later a different man: scrubbed, shaven, dressed in clean clothes. He quietly went into his study again with broom and dustpan and closed the door behind him; a little while later, Big John came in and joined him. A few hours later the study was opened once more, and no traces of the broken bottles or the time Papa had spent comatose on the leather couch remained. Big John carried out the broken glass in a wooden crate; he had it melted down at the glassblower's shop, and had the craftsman make Mama a new set of canning jars and vases for the flowers that she grew that spring and summer in her new garden.

The next morning, Papa was up before the sun; I found him outside, in his shirtsleeves, tilling the soil of the little plot of land on the south side of the house he'd cordoned off for Mama. He carefully, lovingly, broke through the grass and peeled it back to reveal the rich black sod beneath; he broke up the clumps, mulched the dirt and raked it into neat furrows for Mama whenever she was ready to plant.

The next week, a delivery wagon appeared at the front gate, all the way from Houston, the sign on the side proclaiming it to be from Hanson's Farm and Garden. Carefully, the boy handed down countless small flat crates and bags to Papa's waiting hands; all of it was laid reverently at Mama's feet, where she stood, watching, on the porch. I peeked down at the open flat crates, and saw tiny green seedlings growing in the potting soil.

Papa had gotten Mama her flowers.

That summer, the garden bloomed, and so did Mama.

She spent the better part of the next week on her knees in that dirt, her sleeves pushed up above her elbows, leather gloves on her hands, wielding trowel and spade and watering can. She would come in for lunch all smudged with dirt, a huge and happy grin on her face, her forehead and cheeks red with sun and exertion. Her scars were almost gone. She would gobble down food with a new appetite and hurry back outside to the garden, where she'd labor until sundown. She never did allow anyone else to touch it.

After a few weeks, her hard work began to pay off. It was a gentle spring and a sweet, nurturing summer, without the intense heat and blasting winds that sometimes came. The flowers took hold with ease and began blooming soon.

Row after row of them shot up, orderly as soldiers on the march, but much more pleasant and sweet. Sweet peas, primroses, peonies, pansies, violets, hyacinths, marigolds. A stand of cheerful sunflowers, their bright heads nodding in the summer breeze. Then there were the vines, winding around the split-rail fence Papa had built around it, and the trellis Big John had constructed, which leaned up against the wall of the house beneath Mama's bedroom window. Honeysuckle and wild roses and bougainvillea all grabbed hold of the trellis with gusto and bloomed madly, the sweet scent of the flowers perfuming the air all around the house.

Mama would tend her garden every day for a while, and then she would sit on the porch drowsing in the summer heat, fanning herself, smiling lazily, breathing deeply of the scents borne to her on the wind.

I knew she threw herself into that garden the way she had thrown herself into cleaning the house as something therapeutic; she had so much grief and anger that she had to do something with it, or a return to madness was guaranteed. I thought that gardening, as a whole, was an excellent thing to fill her time with.

Papa threw himself back into society, resuming his place among the local farmers and ranchers and merchants with hardly a whisper of protest. Everyone knew what had happened; it is a terrible thing, the other men said, for a man to lose his only son. There were always exceptions that could be made; things could be quietly forgiven. Papa got his respect back quickly, and he thrived on it.

And I had my family back. Battered, bruised, scarred, and would never be the same…but it was something.


	5. Chapter 5: Ambushed

Chapter 5: Ambushed

The days and weeks and months flew by, until years had passed, and before I knew it, I was turning fifteen.

Jasper had been gone for almost three years, but it didn't seem possible that it had been that long: his memory hadn't dimmed at all in my mind, and his scent still permeated his pillow, which I sometimes curled up around, if I woke in the night in the grips of a nightmare. On the mornings after those nightmares, I would wake up and, for just a moment, as my brain was still befuddled by the sleepy fog of dreaming, I would think he was still there, next to me, like he had been on those other "morning-afters" when I was smaller. Then, in a flash, I would realize that I had been dreaming, I would realize it was just a pillow I was clinging to, and that he was gone, gone forever. And then I would have to grieve again, the pain fresh once more.

Thankfully, the nightmares didn't come very often. My whisperers seemed to be trying to keep them at bay by showing me less, or at least fewer things that might frighten me.

On the morning of my fifteenth birthday, I woke to the smells of breakfast and flowers. I lay there for a moment, eyes closed, wondering if I was dreaming, imagining those smells. Sometimes my whisperers would bring scents and sounds to my dreams, and they often lingered upon waking, still rich on my tongue or echoing in my ears.

When I did open my eyes, I saw Mama Dina sitting next to my bed, and a tray on my nightstand, from which those smells were emanating. I detected my favorite: pecan waffles. A little cut-glass vase held a spray of freesia and baby's-breath next to the covered plate. I sat up and smiled.

"Happy birthday, baby!" Mama Dina wrapped me in a fragrant embrace, pulling me tight against her solid warmth. I hugged her back; we sat like that for a long moment, not speaking. That happened often, as if we were each seeking solace in the other's solidity. Finally, she broke away from me and pulled back, swiftly wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. With the other she reached out and tugged at one of my braids.

"Eat, then get up, get dressed. You got some surprises waitin'." She stood up and smoothed her skirts, then went to the door. "Come on down to the kitchen first, all right, baby?"

I grinned eagerly: presents! Who doesn't like presents? And the smell of the waffles hit me again, awakening my stomach with a growl. I wolfed the food down then bolted out of bed, rifling through my closet until I found something presentable. I washed my face and cleaned my teeth with salt and soda, then pinned up my braids into some semblance of order, smoothing down the flyaway hairs with water so I didn't have to waste time re-braiding it. By then my hair was almost down to my backside; women rarely cut their hair in those days, taking great pride in their long plaits…although I found the weight of all that hair to be a headache, in more ways than one.

My fingers were clumsy as I pulled up my stockings and laced up my boots. I had graduated from little girls' shoes to the young women's style of lace-up, tight-fitting soft-leather boots that came up to the tops of my ankles, with stacked heels that made me a little taller, thankfully. I always hated shoes, though, preferring to be barefoot, loving the feel of the grass and the murmur of the earth under my soles.

My whisperers chattered eagerly all around me as I buttoned on my petticoats and then did up the long line of tiny pearl buttons on my dress, my mind far away. Women wore far too many clothes in those times: I nearly fainted from heat stroke during the long, sweltering Texas summers beneath all those layers. In defiance, I would steal away from the house as often as I could during the summer and go down to the creek bottom Jasper, Henry and I had played at as small children. There I would doff my petticoats and stockings and shoes and dangle my hot feet in the cool water, drowsing in the shade of the cottonwoods and willows, and listen to my whisperers tell me stories. The place always reminded me of Jasper; his presence seemed to linger there, but in a happy way. Those were good days.

"_Fifteen! Almost a woman now!"_

"_So beautiful. Becoming such a young lady."_

"_Make sure to thank them for the gifts, child, mind your manners!"_

"_Pay attention to what Mama Dina says, Virginia, it's important."_

The last thought made me pause. What would Mama Dina have to say to me, I wondered? Then I shook my head and sighed in frustration as I gave my skirts a final twitch, glancing at my reflection in the mirror. It didn't matter how much I asked them about the future; they just gave me glimpses of it, little clues, things to look for, unless it was something extremely urgent. More often I had to figure out what they were alluding to. I suppose it helped me to become more observant, and more patient.

I turned and looked at the mirror, full-faced. I had been avoiding mirrors for a very long time by then, not liking what had become accustomed to seeing, during the dark days of the years before: hollow eyes, pale skin, a prematurely aged countenance that had been shaped by grief. It had become a habit not to look at my own face.

But now, I did look. And I was pleasantly surprised by what I saw.

I had really grown up a lot since Jasper had left. I was a few inches taller, but I would never be tall by any stretch of the imagination, and would always be slender. But time had added a roundness to my figure I hadn't ever dreamed I would have, a curve to breast and hip that I hadn't noticed. I suppose I had been to intent on everyone and everything around me to look at my own body objectively.

My hair had darkened a bit, changing from the almost-white of towhead linen to a dark gold shot with lighter streaks from the sun. My face had lost much of the ravages of grief, plumping up a bit as well, the cheekbones no longer standing out sharply beneath my skin, my eyes no longer circled by dark bruise-like hollows. I had dark blue eyes, a nice enough color, I suppose, and I was lucky to have long lashes. Time in the sun had left a scattering of freckles across my cheeks and nose, much to Mama's horror, but they weren't horrible and blotchy like I might have feared. My nose had a bit of a tip to it, and I had nice lips, full with a generous Cupid's bow, and a saucy smile. I guessed I was pretty enough. I was startled how much I realized I looked like Mama.

"Virginia, are you ever coming down here?" Mama Dina's voice echoed up the stairs.

I jumped, startled, and turned away from the mirror. I didn't have time for vanity. Presents called! Without a backwards glance I flew down the stairs toward the kitchen.

The kitchen was full of the smells of Mama Dina's cooking; I glanced around guiltily, knowing that I should have helped her. She must have come in early by an extra hour or two, to be able to get everything done without me. She steadfastly refused to take on a helper, saying that I needed to learn the things she had to teach me, and I didn't mind.

The lessons Mama Dina gave me in that kitchen, on everything from cooking and other domestic duties, to dreaming and divining, to the loving and taking care of a man and children, served me well until the day I died. I could never thank her enough, for filling me up with all that knowledge.

"Well, finally!" she crowed, clapping her hands together and smiling broadly, her teeth flashing white against her ebony skin. I smiled back. "You jes' sit tight there, baby, I got somethin' for you over here, all right?" She disappeared into the pantry, and I sat obediently in one of the chairs that encircled the breakfast table.

After a moment she returned with a large, fabric-wrapped bundle, which she pressed into my expectant hands with a flourish. It was heavy. "Happy birthday, baby!"

I thanked her quietly, my fingers hesitant on the bright calico wrapping, reluctant to open it, for some reason. It seemed important, somehow. I thought back to what the whisperer had said earlier, and wondered what it meant.

Finally, I couldn't hesitate any more, and I pulled on the loose ends of the twine holding the bundle closed, the fabric falling back, to reveal the package's contents.

There was more than one thing there, I realized, and each thing was also wrapped up individually in its own cover. I looked up at Mama Dina questioningly. She smiled.

"Well, honey, there's more'n one thing we needed t'give you, this 's a big step, this birthday."

I shrugged, and began opening the first package, an amorphously-shaped bundle. When I managed to get the wrapping off, I found a dark brown leather bag, elegantly stitched, with brass rivets and tooled handles, about the size of Doc B's doctor's bag. I popped the catch and opened it, peering inside. A heady, complicated scent rose from the bag, which was full of smaller packages and pouches. I looked up at Mama Dina, a little confused. "What is all this?" I asked her.

She grinned widely. "It's your own herb bag, baby. I've taught you enough, you need t'have your own, I think. The Lord's done put healin' in your blood, I do believe."

I blinked in surprise, then felt a warm rush of pride well up inside me. I had learned a lot about healing from her over the past several years, especially during the time Mama was hurt. Mama Dina had taught me the healing properties of and how to identify and gather the healing herbs, flowers, roots, stems and berries; how to dry and store them properly; how to infuse or decoct or otherwise prepare them; and how to make diagnoses of a patient's conditions and administer the medicines and treatments. Doc B snorted and rolled his eyes whenever he heard anything about it, but he never tried to stop it; I think, deep down, he always knew there was more to Mama Dina's "superstitious herb-wifery" than he would acknowledge: after all, he'd asked for her help with Mama.

"You…you really think so?" I whispered, sifting through the small, paper- or -cloth-wrapped packages, bringing some to my nose to smell them.

Mama Dina patted my shoulder. "Yes, I do, I'm very proud of you." Then she pointed to another bundle I hadn't gotten to yet. "Now, get on with it, baby, we ain't got all day, and your Mama and Papa are waitin', too!"

I picked up the heavy, flat bundle she'd indicated and knew immediately that it was a book, but I unwrapped it eagerly anyway. A book, from Mama Dina? That was normally the kind of thing I'd get from Papa.

When I finally revealed the book, my eyes widened in amazement. It was a beautiful leather-bound journal, the creamy pages beautifully empty, begging me to write on them. The page edges were gilded, and my name was engraved on the cover. I caressed the indentions the words made in the dark leather and looked up at Mama Dina, speechless with gratitude. How had she known I wanted something like that? I had never said.

Her dark eyes glittered. "Now, I may not know how t'read myself, but I do know that you need t'keep some record of your dreams, chil'. Big John got this for you down in Houston, we thought you might like it. This'un's from us both." I nodded eagerly.

Despite the infrequency of nightmares, my nights were filled with dreams, from the moment I lay my head on the pillow to the moment my eyes opened to the light of day. I would sit up and squeeze my eyes shut, trying to engrave those dreams onto my memories, the way my name was engraved on the cover of that lovely journal: I wanted to remember them. I knew that they often had some kind of significance, some kind of meaning, and that it was important I harness them and make them my own. But how often, when faced with the brightness of the morning, do the shadowy dreams vanish like smoke in the wind? I was so frustrated with the intransigence of my memory, and had wanted something to write the dreams down in for a long time, but hadn't wanted to ask for fear of making a spectacle of myself. I knew how delicate the balance was in my family; all it might take was some seemingly-inoffensive thing to tip the scales and dump us into craziness again. And I knew a daughter wanting a diary to write down her dreams might just provide that unbalancing.

"My mama and grandmamma told me, it's important to remember your dreams, otherwise you jes' forget 'em. Now, since they didn't know how t'read, they had a code: pictures and symbols an' such, to help them remember. But you're much luckier than them, I think. You have learnin', so you make use of it, y'hear? Everything important, you write it down, all right? Someday, it'll help you, you never know when."

It was as if a bell rang somewhere deep inside me, the tones resonating and echoing inside my mind, and I knew that was what I needed to hear.

"_No more forgetting, Virginia, put it all down."_

"_You have a story to tell, you must write it all."_

"_Great things in store for your future, child, they must be remembered!"_

"_One day, you'll be thankful you did."_

I sighed and reached for the last bundle, which was much smaller, and lighter. I unwrapped the twine from the bright green fabric and unrolled, it; something small and bright tumbled out into my waiting hand.

"Oh, Mama Dina…" I gasped.

I held the pendant up to catch the bright morning sunlight streaming in through the kitchen window. It was a silver circle, the empty space inside it broken by an intricate web of other silver wires, which embraced a smooth, round piece of pale blue turquoise in the center.

.

Mama Dina put her big, warm hands on my shoulders as she stood behind me and looked at the pendant. "It's called a dreamcatcher, baby. Big John made it for you."

I ran my finger over the delicate web of silver wires criss-crossing the frame, the tiny turquoise bead embedded in them, and was amazed at how such huge, clumsy-looking hands could have fashioned something so delicate. It looked as if it would break at the slightest touch, falling to brilliant dust that would blow away on the careless breeze. "What does it mean?" I whispered, glancing up at her. She smiled down at me, her full lips pursed in a curious smile.

"Well, baby, you'd have to ask him, I reckon. It's not my story, not my people."

"I'll go now!" I cried, jumping up, then spent a moment trying to keep my other presents from falling from my lap onto the floor. Mama Dina laughed.

"Chil', don't worry about that right now, you still need t' go see your Mama and Papa, they're waitin' for you, too. Big John'll keep til t'afternoon."

She deftly fastened the delicate silver chain around my neck, then turned me around to face her. "Now, you might want t'keep this our li'l secret, all right, baby?" She didn't look at my eyes as she pulled open the top buttons of my collar and dropped the pendant down into the bosom of my dress, where it rested against my skin, cool and mysterious. "I dunno if your Mama or Papa would approve of the…style." She re-fastened the buttons and patted my cheek. I nodded silently: I understood completely. There was some kind of pagan story behind the dreamcatcher, and my strictly Protestant parents would not like their only daughter…their only _child_…being the bearer of such a symbol.

"Now, go on up, 'fore they call you!" She turned me around and swatted me on the behind gently, propelling me toward the stairs again. I wondered whether I should visit my father or mother first; then, Papa's study door opened and he popped his head out and waved at me, grinning widely. I chuckled and supposed my decision had been made for me.

"Morning, Papa!" I kissed his stubbly cheek as I passed him into the study. He no longer smelled of liquor anymore: he smelled of pipe tobacco and leather and soap, like Papa had always smelled…before.

He caught me up in a tight hug, giving me a little shake before he put me back down again. "You're getting so big, sweetheart!" I rolled my eyes and shook my head in disgust.

"So I barely come above your elbow now, Papa, that doesn't exactly qualify me as a giantess!"

He laughed and chucked me under the chin, and drew me toward the window of his study, one arm around my shoulder. "Well, you're a young woman now, I expect. Take a look out the window and tell me if you think you're big enough for this gift, all right?"

I shadowed my eyes against the glare with my hand, peering out the window. From Papa's study you could see the stable yard. The horses and foals were out, taking the morning sun, while the grooms worked them over with curry-combs and brushes. I saw Star, my little gray pony, having her hooves pared down, next to Eagle, Papa's big roan gelding. Mama's Feather, a velvety-brown Morgan with delicate feet and an aristocratic face, leaned up against Thunder, Big John's horse, who stood a good five hands higher than her. They'd always been good friends. I glanced up at Papa in puzzlement. "What am I looking for, Papa?"

He chuckled and pointed. "There. Coming out of the stable now."

Big John came out of the stable door into the hot morning sunlight and turned to look over at the window, where Papa was waving at him excitedly. His dark face split with a bright grin, and with a gentle tug, a horse followed him out of the shadows, into the yard.

And there she was.

Snowy white, her mane and tail gleaming like silver thread, she was the most beautiful horse I'd ever seen. She had slender legs, a beautifully arched neck, intelligent ears pricked to the sounds of the other horses, and dark, liquid brown eyes shaded by long lashes. I loved her immediately.

"Papa!" I breathed, wondering. "She's beautiful!"

He smiled proudly and patted the top of my head. I tried not to let that bother me: I hated being treated like a child, or worse, a pet. "I'm glad, Virginia. I know you'll treat her right. You're a good horseman. Or, er, horsewoman…"

I punched his arm and leaned forward, out the window, toward the horse. She turned and looked back, as if sensing my interest, and our gazes locked.

From that moment, until the black day nearly forty years later that I had to bury her, Belle was my constant companion.

"She's been well-trained to regular and side-saddle, she has an excellent bloodline, and…" Papa's voice droned on, listing her qualities, but all I need to do was watch her, and she watched me. Big John's grin turned to outright laughter. He said to me later that I had finally given in to my first love…with a horse.

How ironic that I fell in love _twice_ that day, and that it was real, true love, both times.

Something about a horse promised _freedom_. I wouldn't be tied to the earth on a slow little pony; I could gallop across the plains full-tilt, my hair flying in the wind, as I tried to outrun the clouds. My fingers itched to put the bridle and saddle on her, it was all I could do not to vault over the windowsill and run to her right then, disappear forever into the hot springtime morning.

But I had to go see my mother.

After a few more minutes of thank-you's and you're-welcomes, I managed to leave Papa to himself and climb the stair up to Mama's room. She was waiting for me.

She had changed dramatically in the past couple of years. She had never fully regained all of the weight she'd lost in her depression, but she was no longer alarmingly bone-thin. Her complexion had regained it rosy tone, and the scars were gone entirely. Her dark blonde hair was shot with silver now, but you could only see it if you looked for it; her face was still unlined, her brow smooth and young, thanks to the care she lavished on it, with her creams and potions and total aversion to the sun. She did work in the garden every day, but only when covered completely, with a huge, floppy hat and gloves. Her eyes never completely lost the hollowness of her brush with madness, but she wasn't insane any more. Thank God.

"Good morning, Virginia. Happy birthday, my dear." She held out her arms to embrace me; she smelled, as always, of roses. After a moment she let go and held me at arm's length, looking me up and down with sharp eyes. "Almost a woman, now. So soon." She sighed and dropped her hands from my shoulders, but took one of mine in hers and drew me to her bed, pulling me down to sit with her.

"I had been wondering what to get you for your birthday, Virginia, but you aren't the easiest girl there is to give presents to." She smiled. "You don't like fashion or fancy jewelry, you'll never be more than passable at any of the ladylike arts, so giving you a musical instrument or a new embroidery hoop or something like that…"

I rolled my eyes. I hated sewing: I pricked my fingers and tangled the thread, and my embroidery and knitting looked like it had been done by a toddler. I wasn't a musician: my hands were clumsy, and I couldn't keep a beat. And as for fashion and pretty things to wear…well, one would have to like to look in the mirror more than once in three years to truly appreciate things like that. I wasn't ladylike: I laughed too loud, when I laughed at all, I had always preferred the company of boys than girls, and I disliked being cooped up inside.

I liked to read and write and ride horses, I liked to cook and help Mama Dina with things around the house and with her healing. I enjoyed the feel of the earth between my fingers when I helped in the garden, and I knew how to calm and care for animals like it was second-nature. And of course, I heard voices. I was just different. I had accepted it a long time before.

"_Don't worry about it, you're fine the way you are."_

"_Well, she could possibly put forth a bit more effort into being a proper young woman…"_

"_Don't listen to that fool, you're wonderful!"_

"_It's your path to your destiny, travel it your way, Virginia."_

I ducked my head so Mama wouldn't see my grin.

"Well, as I said, I had a terrible time deciding what to get you for your birthday, my dear. Finally, I made up my mind, and I hope you like it."

I reached out and patted her hand comfortingly. "Of course I'll love it, Mama, if it's from you."

She sighed and got up, crossing to her wardrobe. "We'll see, darling. We'll see."

Opening the doors, she reached inside and pulled out a large box. Placing it on my lap, she gestured for me to open it. I carefully pulled off the brown paper wrapping it and lifted off the lid.

Inside was a large leather suitcase. I looked up at her, confused. "Am I going somewhere?"

Her lips pursed, her cornflower-blue eyes worried, she nodded.

"Where? When?"

She cleared her throat. "You're going North. To go to school. In Chicago."

I stared at her, a numbness spreading through my entire body, my heart pounding. It took a moment to get my mouth to work again, and when it did, my tongue felt swollen and stupid.

"Chi-Chicago? Why?"

Mama turned and went to the window, as if unwilling to look at me. "There's a lovely finishing school there, run by an old friend of mine. She married well, a rich man, some kind of businessman…Anyway, he took her to Chicago, and when he died a few years ago, she used her inheritance to set up the school. It was always something she wanted to do." She turned again and looked at me, her whole body tense, her face fearful. "I don't want to send you away, Virginia, but I am afraid if I leave you here on this farm, and make no attempt to instill some proper manners into you, that I will be a complete failure as a mother."

She hung her head in shame. "I didn't manage to save your brother, Virginia. I let your father fill his head with all those grandiose ideas of heroism and patriotism and such…and look what happened. Now all I have is you, and you will never make a decent match the way you are. You're too wild, too willful, too unmannered…I cannot, in good conscience, allow you to waste so much potential. You need schooling, and my friend will give it to you. Then, when you return, we'll see about finding a good match for you, a worthy husband, someone you can make a life with, have children…Wouldn't you like that, Virginia?" She lifted her eyes to mine, imploring.

I couldn't speak. My heart thudded unnaturally in my chest.

"_Be quiet, child, don't be defiant. You mustn't make it worse. You mustn't endanger her mind again, she's fragile!"_

"_This is all part of the plan, Ginny, just relax. Everything will work out."_

It was all I could do to not break out crying or to start screaming at the top of my lungs like a maniac. I felt like my body was going to fly apart into a million tiny pieces, and only by sheer strength of will was I able to keep myself together. I dug deep for the strength to reply to her; she was waiting.

"But Mama, I don't want to go someplace like that. I don't even know if I would ever want to get married."

She stared at me, horrified. "Of course you do, Virginia! You don't want to end up as a poor spinster, alone and pitied by everyone!" She made it sound like that was a fate worse than death. "Why on earth would you ever want to be by yourself for the rest of your life! And besides, you have always told me you wanted to go to school, now here is your chance!"

"But, Mama, I don't want to go away, and I certainly don't want to be made into some silly, trivial—"

"_**Be quiet**__!!"_

The voices thundered together with the kind of urgency I hadn't heard in years; I clamped my jaws together so tightly they ached, startled by the force of them. I forced myself to look away from Mama's wide, scandalized eyes, and dropped my head. My brain was swimming in confusion, all I wanted to do was get up and run, run away, as fast as I could…

"Virginia."

I looked up at her again. She had tears standing in her eyes. "You know, it's the best thing for you. It is, truly." I nodded dumbly. "You leave in August. So you do have the summer, after all. It's not tomorrow." She bit her lip. "I couldn't bear to let you go so soon." She came and sat down next to me again, and put something small into my hands. "And here is the rest of your present. I hope you like this better."

I turned the tiny box over a few times in my hands, not really wanting to open it, but I knew if I didn't the whisperers would admonish me for rudeness. Finally I tugged on the top, revealing a bed of black velvet inside. Against my will, I inhaled sharply.

Nestled into the velvet was a ring. A star sapphire, set in a delicate web of tiny diamonds and white gold, gleaming dully in the shadow of the bedroom. I stared at Mama, wondering.

"I know you don't really care much for jewelry, as I mentioned before, but it was your grandmother's, Virginia. She gave it to me when I was fifteen, and I am giving it to you. When you marry one day, you'll take that ring off, and you'll eventually give it to your own daughter, when she turns fifteen. It's something of a Matthews family tradition."

I slipped the ring onto my trembling finger, amazed that it fit. I had such small hands. "Thank you, Mama. It's beautiful."

She smiled and patted my hand. "I'm glad. Now, you can go. I'm sure you want to go off somewhere and pout."

How did she know that? Was I so transparent, so predictable? Of course, the answer to that was yes and yes…I was a teenager, after all. I took her at her word and left as quickly as I could, eager to be away from her, from the house.

I sprinted down the stairs, nearly falling as I tangled my boot heel up in the hem of my skirts, and tumbled headlong out the front door and down the porch steps to the yard. I ran around the edge of the house, breathless, toward the stable yard, where I knew I would find what I was looking for.

Sure enough, there she was. Tethered to the edge of the corral, she seemed to be waiting for me.

I reached out with shaking hands to touch her muzzle, which was velvety-soft; she huffed a warm breath into my palm, nibbling at me gently, rolling her dark eye to look at me better, sidling closer to press her neck against me. I closed my eyes and leaned my forehead against her, inhaling the rangy, horsey scent of her, which to me was like heaven: it promised freedom, distance, speed.

"You ready to try 'er out, miss?" Big John's voice startled me. My eyes flew open and I whirled to face him.

He was grinning, holding an armful of tack out toward me. It was all new, the leather buttery-soft, the nickel rivets and inlay shining brightly. I reached out to take the bridle, and John kept the saddle, coming around behind me to place it gently onto Belle's back. She shivered delicately as first the blanket and then the saddle settled onto her back, but she didn't move any more than that, standing perfectly still as he adjusted the girth and stirrups to her comfort and my height. I looped the bridle over her head gently, tightening the little buckles carefully, settling the light bit into her mouth with the utmost care. I was very easy on my horses' mouths; Big John and Papa alike had told me innumerable times that a horse's mouth is paramount, and the best way to ruin a perfectly good animal is to toughen up his mouth with a thick bit and clumsy hands at the reins. Belle seemed to smile at me, mouthing the bit carefully, then letting it settle easily, huffing a warm breath into my face.

_Come ride_, she seemed to be saying. And I was more than willing.

I swung myself up into the saddle easily, not caring for a moment that my skirts were pushed back to my thighs and my stockinged legs were out for all the world to see. There was not a chance in heaven or hell that I'd ride side-saddle. I looked down at Big John, who stood back, smiling as he watched me.

"You like like you's made for that horse, miss." He studied us knowingly. He was a huge man, a head taller than Papa, who was over six feet, his frame massive and broad. His skin was the rich color of warm copper, his hair straight black and pulled back in a tail at the nape of his neck, his eyes such a dark brown it was almost black. His face held the noblest combination of the features of the races that had contributed to making him: a strong, aquiline nose, full lips, large, thick-lashed eyes, exotically-angled cheekbones. He was quite handsome, I knew, and he had eyes only for Mama Dina, and she for him. "I think your Pa done picked right, if I may say so."

"Thank you, John. I think so, too." I stroked Belle's neck lovingly. Then memory pricked me. "Oh, and…thank you for the lovely birthday gifts. They mean the world to me." I reached up and pulled out the necklace, letting it lay outside of my bodice, proudly. "Perhaps later, when I come back, you can tell me the story of the dreamcatcher?"

His eyes glowed. "I'd be happy to, miss. Whenever you like."

I grinned. "I'll find you later then, John!" And with that, I gently dug at Belle's flanks with my heels and clucked the reins. "Let's go, girl!" I whispered, leaning down over her neck to speak into her ear. Without a moment's pause, she did a neat turn on her hind legs and we shot out of the corral, heading toward the rolling hills, which beckoned me.

As we made our way through the outbuildings, I thrilled at the feel of her between my legs, at the sleek responsiveness of her, her gentle gait, her sensitive responses to my guiding. She didn't need to be tugged at or kicked, indeed, she seemed to anticipate my actions before I did anything. I was ecstatic, the horrible moments I had spent with Mama long gone, buried deep beneath the joy of my ride.

Then I saw him.

There he was, standing in the shadow of the barn, leaning up against the wall carelessly, looking for all the world like he'd been waiting for me.

He was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen: tall, dark-skinned, deep brown eyes, his hair long and loose around his shoulders, beautiful as a woman's, but he was fiercely masculine. He watched me as I came toward him and smiled slowly, one corner of his mouth lifting crookedly, before the grin widened to show perfectly white, straight teeth. He was older than me, but not older than twenty, I guessed, and he was completely unknown. A stranger.

I felt sweat break out all over my body, a combination of fear and a gut reaction to my fiercely primal attraction to him. I had never felt that way about anyone, ever. It was as if there was a magnet pulling me to him, an almost physical force. I wanted to get down and go to him, ask him who he was, reach up and touch his face, brush back his hair.

"_No, not yet!"_

"Hello, there," he called quietly, but his voice carried to me easily on the breeze. My heart thumped crazily at the sound of his voice, low and rich and musical.

I could barely bring myself to reply. "H-hello."

He didn't move, just stayed there in the shadow, looking up at me as I drew closer, but not too close. I stayed just beyond his reach, nervous at his strangeness, and frightened by my reaction.

"Don't worry, I'm not any danger to you," he said, smiling gently. His eyes traveled over my face, as if memorizing every line, every place, every freckle. "I'm just passing through. I brought your horse here today. I work at Gibson's horse traders." He tore his eyes from mine (I flattered myself that he had a hard time doing it, as if he were just as compelled to look at me as I was to look at him) and looked at Belle. "She's a beautiful animal. I hope you two get along well."

I nodded dumbly, my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth, my head spinning. It seemed that the force of gravity had suddenly vanished, and I was in danger of floating away into the hot blue sky. It was like all the beauty of all the nature in all the world had resolved itself into the curve of his smile, the sparkle of his eyes.

I knew then that I didn't want to be alone for the rest of my life.

Finally, he moved, taking a cautious step toward me, extending his hand up toward me. Wordless, I reached out and took it; his hand was warm and strong and huge, enveloping mine…but it didn't feel frightening. It felt safe. Like when I had been a baby, and Jasper had held my hand.

"My name is William. William Standing."

The sound of his name was like music. I closed my eyes for a moment, savoring it, then realized I was being silly and rude…and completely transparent. Finally, I found my voice.

"Virginia. Virginia Whitlock." It was barely a whisper. He smiled even broader, but he didn't release my hand. I felt a raging fire racing up my arm from that hand, spreading a torrid warmth everywhere in my body, boiling my blood… "Well, Ginny."

"I'm very pleased to meet you, Virginia Whitlock," he murmured, covering my hand with his other, inclining his head politely. Then he let it go, and it was as if someone had dumped a bucket of cold water over my head; my body craved his touch again, begged for it, like Mama had begged for laudanum. "Ginny."

My heart stopped…then took off, galloping uncontrollably like a mad horse. The sound of my name on his tongue was worse than all the liquor in the world, burning me inside, my head spinning.

_Oh my, this is going to turn out badly_, my mind screamed, trying to be logical. I cursed it. I knew what he was. He was an Indian. Or at least half—the kind of man I could never, ever associate with. It had only been recently that "my kind" had even acknowledged "his kind" as being part of the human race, after all.

William Standing pushed a strand of his long hair back behind his ear and smiled again. "Well, I must be getting back to Houston, Miss Whitlock…" He bit his lip. Was he _nervous_? How could that be possible? "But it's been a pleasure meeting you…Perhaps…perhaps I will see you again, sometime?"

Hope sprung to life inside me, a sparkling shower of hope that made me tingle. All I could do was nod, too excited to even allow myself to speak. I pushed away the sensible things my mind was trying to tell me, about borrowing trouble, and concentrated on the color of his eyes, the shape of his lips, the breadth of his shoulders, committing them all to memory, knowing I would replay all those details again and again.

"Well, then, you have a good day, Miss Whitlock." He nodded to me and turned to go, took a few steps, then stopped, turned again to look at me. "And…happy birthday, Ginny."

Then he was gone, disappearing around the corner of the barn, leaving the silence echoing with the memories of the sounds of his voice and the vibrations of his presence.

I took a long, deep, shuddering breath and leaned forward, pressing my burning cheek to Belle's warm neck. She nickered, sounding concerned.

"Oh, Belle my beauty, I think I'm in big trouble now," I muttered, closing my eyes.

I couldn't stay still any longer. I had to get away, find some way to compose myself. I sat up, clucked at Belle, touched her with my heel, and we shot off across the fields, into the wild hills, away from my predicament, seeking escape, freedom.

But I couldn't run away. I was trapped, no matter how far or fast I ran. And the net was spun from by a set of sparkling dark eyes and a laughing smile…

William Standing. My fate was sealed forever, in the space of a few moments.


	6. Chapter 6: Avalanche

**Chapter 6: Avalanche**

That was the fastest summer ever experienced by any human being who ever drew a breath on this planet, I think. But the first two days of it were hell on earth.

From the day I first saw William Standing, the minutes seemed to fly by; I swore I could sit and watch an hour pass and it would feel like only a few minutes, the entire time my heart thudding in my chest as if I'd been running. What was the reason for the sudden acceleration of my life?

I was in love. And not just puppy-love, or a crush, or a temporary madness. Love. Real love. After seeing him once.

Now, I know I was only fifteen, but still…I'd never been your typical child, and at fifteen I was much more mature than my years. Besides, during those times girls married at my age all the time. But it wasn't just my age. It was the suddenness, the intensity, of my feelings.

Anyone who has been young and in love knows that it is a potent thing, a thing that takes on a life of its own, overshadowing everything with its passion. You feel as if the whole world is glowing, as if your feet barely skim the ground when you walk and everything tastes good, flavored by your sudden zest for life. The nighttime hours only exist to torment you, as you're forced to lay quietly in a bed while everything inside you wants to jump up and run forever, til your lungs burst with joy.

My first love. And the love of my life.

A first love and a true, life-long love combined is a rare bird indeed—and I was lucky enough to catch that bird for my own.

After William Standing left me speechless and breathless there astride my new horse, I had to run. Well, I had to let Belle run, something I discovered she did admirably well. We flew across the Texas plains until I could no longer see the farm, miles behind us, hidden by the waving green grass. I finally commanded poor Belle to stop by a small copse of cottonwoods when her labored breathing punched through my selfish haze; I led her into the shade and loosely tied her reins around a low-hanging branch, pouring water from my canteen and giving her a drink of water from my cupped hands. Then, my horse tended to, I slid into a graceless heap at the base of the same tree and put my head into my hands and began to cry.

All around the whisperers tried to soothe me, almost unintelligible with the tumult of the number of voices and differing opinions. I scrubbed my eyes fiercely against the tears until I saw stars, my mind raging in frustration at the chaos: it was accomplishing the exact opposite of what they intended, poor things. All I wanted was silence. Finally, I couldn't take it any longer and I screamed.

"Stop! Be quiet, please, and let me think!"

Dead silence reigned.

I sighed and closed my eyes, leaning back against the scratchy bole of the tree. I looked over at Belle, who stood close by me, munching contentedly on a mouthful of the tender spring grass, her big, dark eyes regarding me calmly.

"So, what do you think, Belle? Are we in trouble or what?"

She didn't reply. But then again, I hadn't expected her to. My hearing voices ended with humansAfter all, I could only hear human voices. I think if an animal started talking to me I'd truly go mad. I closed my eyes again, trying to find a little perspective.

His face hovered behind my eyelids when I closed them, so I had to open them again. Darn.

All right, I told myself. Let's be logical here. So I have fallen for a complete stranger.

A completely unacceptable, complete stranger.

A completely perfect stranger.

Completely. _Perfect._

Against my will I mentally traced the lines of him, long and tall, broad shoulders and strong arms and a muscled chest beneath his shirt, large and sensitive hands…The angle of his nose, the wide, clear expanse of forehead and cheekbone, the raven-blackness of his hair. His dark, dark eyes.

I knew what my parents thought of Indians. We'd been brought up at Papa's knee on his litany of second-hand horror stories; he wanted us to consider them nothing more than pagan savages, half-naked butchers who only wanted to scalp the white man and rape the white woman and ravage their lands. He'd never experienced it, but he'd been told so much that he believed it all.

But I knew better.

I knew Big John, who had a good portion of Indian blood in him, and I knew he was the gentlest, kindest person I had ever met. I had read the stories: how the Indians helped the poor, starving Pilgrims for the first Thanksgiving. Pocahontas and John Smith. Sacagawea and Lewis and Clark. There were many others as well. Of course, there were some that could be easily termed "savage," but I had to think that if I had been on their end of things when the Europeans had arrived in the Americas, I might feel a bit savage myself.

So what was I supposed to do with this bizarre love? This overwhelming feeling?

Ignore it. Squash it down. Make it die. That's what I had to do.

Right?

I took a deep, shuddering breath and felt as if my insides were on fire. It felt wrong. Wrong to know I needed to do that, and even more wrong to try.

Immediately the roaring tumult of voices started again, and this time I let the force of them wash over me.

_No, no, no, it's wrong! _What was wrong? Loving him or not loving him?

_Follow your heart, child, no matter what your head tells you._

_Just let it happen. Follow your path to your destiny. _

_Don't worry._

_We love you._

_You'll be fine._

Clear as mud.

I sat there beneath that tree for a long time, watching the sun reach its zenith high above in the pale blue sky and begin its descent. I watched the shadows of the clouds flow endlessly across the prairie, driven by the warm spring wind from the east. I listened to the birdsong and the cicadas buzzing in the trees, and tried to ignore the voices again, irritated by it all.

Finally I could sit there no more. I knew that, birthday or no birthday, I would eventually be missed and that I had responsibilities. So I heaved myself up from my spot and loosed Belle's reins, climbing easily up into the saddle again, and I headed back toward the farm, much slower than I'd come.

By the time I made it home, lunch had been served and cleared away, and Mama Dina was in the kitchen peeling another mountain of potatoes for dinner. Without a word, I took my apron from its hook and tied it on then joined her at the table, knife in hand to help.

We peeled in companionable silence for a while. The rhythm of such a simple task was soothing in a way the voices hadn't been. I put all my concentration into the rotating of each potato in my hand as I carefully pared the brown skin away, trying to make it all come off in one long, thin coil like Mama Dina could every time. I felt the center of my focus narrowing, and the furor died down a bit inside me, from a raging wildfire into a banked hearthfire.

"So," Mama Dina murmured, breaking the silence after a while, "How you like that new horse?"

I looked up at her and smiled, meeting her eyes. "I love her. She's wonderful."

For a moment, we gazed at each other, me still smiling, her nodding, then something happened. Her dark brown eyes widened a bit in surprise, then narrowed in suspicion…

"What happened to you today?" she whispered sharply, still staring at me, leaning forward a bit, to study me more closely.

I frowned and wondered whether I had dirt all over my face. "Nothing?" I looked down at my dress to see if I had any noticeable stains.

Mama Dina frowned right back at me, her eyebrows knitting together until her face resembled a thundercloud. "Virginia Lucille Whitlock, what have you done?" she hissed fiercely, enunciating every word, coming around the table to take me by the shoulders. She gave me a little shake. "Tell me, or I swear, I'll take a switch t'you an' get it outta you!"

I felt my stomach plummet toward my knees and my heart started pounding like a drum in fear, a cold sweat beading up all over me. I had never seen Mama Dina look so angry in her life, and she had never, ever called me by my full name, or laid a finger on me in any way but gently. I opened my mouth to reply but I couldn't talk, my mouth was as dry as a desert, and my throat felt blocked, congested. What had I done?

Mama Dina shook me again, a bit harder that time. "Out with it, girl! Who is he?"

Then it hit me, thunderously, like a ton of bricks. My mind went in a thousand different directions as my heart took off like a galloping horse.

_Oh, my God, she knows!_

_Oh, my God, I must look horrible!_

_What do I say? The truth, or lie? Why does it matter?_

_Should I run away?_

That time, it wasn't a mess of whispers from the outside, it was my own brain shouting at me. Finally, a few agonizing seconds later, I decided the best course was dishonesty.

"I-I don't know w-what you mean!" I finally stammered, blinking furiously against the tears I felt forming behind my eyes.

Mama Dina snorted in disbelief and let me go. "Yes, you do know what I mean, girl. I see it in your face. You done met a man. You got that look."

I shook my head in fierce denial, hoping it was fierce enough.

She looked me up and down slowly, carefully, as if taking the measure of every inch of me with her sharp eyes. "I know a lie when I hear it, chil'," she finally said, her voice thick with disappointment. "I never thought I'd see the day when you would lie t'me. After all the things we done been through t'gether."

I hung my head in shame. I remembered all the years, where not a single day had passed when her capable, dark hands had not guided me when I needed direction or caught me when I fell. She had sung me to sleep as a baby, held me when I cried, had taught me so much. She didn't deserve dishonesty. She had never once given away a secret, had always respected my peculiarities and allowed me to be myself, even when she disapproved.

"His name is William Standing," I finally whispered, staring down at the floor. I couldn't bring myself to look up at her, meet those burning eyes. "He brought my horse today from Houston. I saw him by the barn as I was leaving for my ride. He said hello and told me his name, then he left. That's all. Nothing else."

The silence between us was so thick and heavy I believe I could have reached out and touched it.

Finally, I could stand it no more and I looked up at her. I had to know what she was thinking; I had to see her face.

Mama Dina was staring off into space, away from me, and she was crying. Silent tears coursed down her face unchecked, dropping off her chin to spatter the bright green calico of the bodice of her dress. I gasped in shock at seeing that, and she turned her face back to look at me.

"I knew this day would come soon, but I'd hoped not so soon as today," she whispered, her voice heavy and sad.

I was bewildered. I ran back through the day in my mind, every part of it, wondering if I'd gone stark raving mad and forgotten all about the part where I'd run away and eloped with the man. That was the only thing I could think of that could possibly elicit that kind of a response from her. That, or if I'd just gone somewhere private with him…

Never!

But…well…maybe not _never_.

Down, girl!

"What are you talking about, Mama? I just met him, and I…I like him, yes, I think he's handsome, but it's not as if anything happened…"

She shook her head and finally looked at me again, dabbing at her eyes with the corner of her apron before reaching down to reclaim her forgotten paring knife and a potato. She began peeling again as if nothing had ever happened. I was even more confused.

"But you's in love."

Not a question. A statement. Almost an accusation.

I sighed and rolled my eyes in exasperation. What on earth had she seen in my face? Did I have "I love an Indian" blazoned across my forehead? I decided to copy her and started peeling potatoes again, hoping that the homely routine of the movements might calm me again.

"Love is a strong word, Mama. I think he's handsome. I do like him. But that's all. I just met him!"

Then it was her turn to sigh, but she didn't challenge me. We finished the potatoes in complete silence, but that time the silence wasn't friendly: it was as if something stood between us, blocking the good feelings, cutting us off from each other.

We finished making supper in that same stifling silence, and when it was ready I excused myself to my mother, telling her I didn't feel like eating, and went up to my room. Mama stared at me worriedly, wondering, I knew, whether my mood had to do with the whole school revelation, but she let me go, figuring that it was best to let me get over my fit of pique on my own, I suppose.

My room was full of shadows when I went in, flinging myself onto the bed after locking the door behind me. I lay on my side, hugging Jasper's pillow to my chest, staring out the window at the setting sun: the blood-red ball was slowly disappearing into the horizon, painting the sky with wild, flaming color.

What was wrong with me?

A lot, apparently.

I punched the pillow in frustration. "Why aren't you here, big brother? Why can't you be here to say I'm a silly girl and then tell me what I should do?" I whispered to the empty room. No one answered me, of course, not even my whisperers. Then I started crying again, quiet, hitching sobs that I smothered in that pillow, soaking the muslin with my tears, until I fell asleep.

"Wake up!"

Hands were shaking me in the dark, the voice right next to my ear. I was disoriented, confused, a bit frightened. Was I dreaming? It felt real, but at the same time, someone waking me in the dead of night was unusual.

"Baby, wake up! I needs t'talk t'you!"

The fog began to dissipate from my sleepy brain as I realized who was speaking, and that it was not a dream. Her hands were far too real on my arm.

"Mama Dina?" I mumbled, opening my eyes to the dark, but I could see her silhouette above me, darker still.

"Yes, baby. Sit up, now, all right?" She helped me get myself into a sitting position, then touched my cheek gently.

"I'm sorry t'wake you like this, but I couldn't sleep after this afternoon. Like t'drove John crazy with my tossin' and turnin' and mumblin'. Finally, he told me, 'Woman, you best get over t'that house an' talk t'that girl, or I swear, you'll sleep outside!'" She laughed quietly, shaking her head. "Poor man."

I rubbed my eyes sleepily. "What's wrong?"

She sighed and stroked my hand, which she held tightly in her lap. It took her a long moment to answer me.

"Ginny," she finally murmured, surprising me again by saying my name, "I knew that look on your face when I saw it, right away. I had t'same look when I met John, and my mama saw it jus' like I did in yours. She tried t'put me off'im. That kind'a love is always hard, always causes problems."

"What are you talking about, Mama?" I shook my head. "I don't love him! I just met him!"

Lies, lies, lies.

Mama Dina laughed again, a sad little chuckle. "Baby, sometimes that's all it takes: one look. That's all it took for me. One look, an' I was gone, my heart wasn't my own anymore. He had it in his back pocket, an' he always will. But I'm a lucky woman, I gots me a man who knows what he has in his pocket, an' he cares for it."

She squeezed my hand so hard it hurt. "But I worry about you. You's so young, you don't know nothin' 'bout the world, an' you're so…so _different_. Whatever man you love needs t'know that, an' there ain't many of 'em out there that'll understand you. I worry you're gonna get your heart broken, an' then _you'll_ be broken, too."

I didn't have anything to say. My whisperers surged around me, tickling my ears with their proximity: they agreed with her. They wanted me to be careful. But they didn't try to change my feelings, either.

"Who is this man?" Mama Dina finally asked me, her death-grip on my hand loosening. "What's he like?"

I bit my lip and thought for a moment. What to say? Another lie? Or just spill it all? I'd made the wrong choice before and hurt her feelings, so I decided to tell the truth.

I told her about how with the first sound of his voice I'd been struck dumb, how with the first sight of his face I'd been struck blind, at least to anything but him. I described him breathlessly, glad for the darkness which hid my furious blushing from her inquisitive eyes. I told her how he'd said he wanted to see me again.

"And that's it? No promises t'meet? No arrangements made?" she asked suspiciously.

"No. None at all." I sighed. "I promise."

Mama Dina clucked a little in thought. "Well, at least there's that, he ain't tryin' t' get you alone or anythin' like that. Maybe he has a little respect," she muttered darkly. "I'm gonna ask John about 'im, if he brought that horse'a yours here Big John'll know somethin' about 'im." She patted my hand gently. "An' 'bout him bein' Indian…Well, baby, you know how I feel. I married one. But that don't mean your folks'll understand, y'know."

I nodded mutely. Yes, I knew that very well. I knew it was hopeless, foolish, reckless, stupid…all those things and more…to even entertain the slightest hope of anything more than a flirtation with him. Besides, I was to be shipped off to finishing school in a few short months, so that would be the end of it all, anyway. Someone that handsome would get snatched up before too long, I knew, regardless of whatever strange and illogical connection I felt with him.

Mama Dina stood up and dropped a kiss on my forehead, filling my nostrils with her spicy perfume for a moment, then she left me with a whispered goodnight. I lay back against the pillows and stared up at the dark ceiling, wide awake, wondering what to do.

Hopeless. Stupid. Reckless. Foolish. Illogical.

Insane!

All those words kept pounding themselves against the inside of my head, as if they were trying to batter their way out, as if they were trying to stomp out the other words.

Love. Fate. Destiny. Love. Love. _Love._

I lay there until fatigue finally settled in and made my eyelids heavy once more, and the whisperers lulled me to sleep with their murmured reassurances.

I slept.

_In my dream, I was running. Running so hard and so fast that the ground was a featureless plain beneath me, my feet barely touching the grass as I flew like a hawk on the wing, the wind cool as it streamed around me._

_What was I running from? Or was I running __**toward**__ something?_

_But I wasn't running alone. Someone was running beside me._

_I saw a shadow keeping time with me as I went, huge and strong, four legs a blur of motion as he effortlessly kept up with me._

_He?_

_And somehow I knew that the creature running so joyfully beside me was William Standing. And somehow I also knew that his name wasn't complete. There was something missing. _

_Not Standing. Standing __**Bear.**__ William Standing Bear._

_I stopped suddenly, struck motionless by the realization, and I turned to look at him._

_And the bear smiled at me…And then the man smiled at me._

"_Come away with me, Virginia Whitlock." His voice was just as I remembered it, soft as velvet. "Come away with me."_

_White hot, his voice kindled a flame inside me that licked at my very bones, turning them to ash. I trembled. I could almost feel his lips on mine, his body pressed against me…_

_I shook my head, panic rising up in me: No! I couldn't go anywhere with him! My parents, what would happen to them if I did? They'd almost killed themselves after Jasper died, what would they do when I, their only remaining child, vanished with an Indian?_

_He began to fade, and his face was so unutterably sad, I reached out to comfort him, my heart breaking inside me at the sight of him. My poor, sad, sweet bear._

"_You can't fight it, Virginia. Some things are just meant to be. You just have to have the strength to let yourself be happy."_

_His words echoed in my ears, caressing me._

_And then he was gone, vanished into a swirl of mist, and I was alone, and suddenly it was so cold, so cold, and I was so weak. I crumpled to the icy ground, I couldn't stand any longer, and my tears froze as they coursed down my cheeks, he was gone, he was gone…_

_Gone!_

_**No!**_

And I woke with a start, finding myself sitting up in the bed with my arms outstretched, and real tears were soaking my nightgown.

It took a long time for me to calm down, for my heart to stop its reckless pounding, for me to stop crying. The tears just kept coming, no matter how many times I wiped them away or blinked or took deep breaths.

The pieces of my dream floated behind my eyelids, but they were beginning to disintegrate, become like wisps of smoke blown on the wind, like _he_ had become when he vanished.

I couldn't let it go. I had to write it down. Mama Dina had said so. The whisperers had said so.

I reached over to my nightstand where the journal Mama Dina and Big John had given to me lay, waiting for me. I snagged quill and ink out of the drawer and pulled my knees up to write on them, opened the leather cover to reveal the first empty page. I closed my eyes and concentrated. After a moment it began to come to me.

The images poured through me, and my pen struggled to keep up with the flow.

The bear. The bear becoming William. William _Standing Bear_. Him asking me to come away with him. Saying that some things were meant to be. That I had to find the strength to let myself be happy.

I stopped writing and shook my head at my own stupidity.

What on earth did my being happy have to do with anything? If there was anything that the last three years had taught me, it was that happiness in life isn't guaranteed, and really shouldn't be expected. The only guaranteed thing in life was the finality of death in the end, and the only things that mattered in life were what you did with the moments you had. You had to do your duty. You had to accept your place, do the right thing.

For me, the right thing was to take care of my family, to obey my parents and do what they told me to do. To be a good and faithful daughter to them in the face of their loss of their only son.

Happiness. I felt a little pang of resentment and sadness: I remembered being a child, the last time I'd been truly happy. I had taken such joy in going so completely contrary to what everyone thought I should do or be. My jokes and pranks, my wild romps with the boys, my secret pride in my strange abilities. I'd been blissfully unaware of the ugly things in life, except when they were shown to me in my dreams, and I helped make them better.

But all that was gone now. I had responsibilities. I had to be there for Mama and Papa. I had to be a good girl.

But what about me? What about what I wanted? Didn't that matter?

No, of course not. Why should it matter?

And suddenly I was angry.

Jasper had gone off to do his own thing, damn all of us to deal with the consequences.

Mama had let herself descend into madness, not caring that she had another child who was still living, who was still _right there_ in front of her, begging for her love.

Papa had thrown his vaunted morals to the winds and become a drunk, neglecting his duties to his farm, community, and worst of all, family. It was as if I never existed to him, until Mama smashed his precious bottles.

And yet, I was expected to sacrifice everything and accept it all, do the "right thing," keep quiet, take care of everyone else, when none of them gave a moment's thought to me.

Even after Mama had gotten herself under control, she had never truly gone back to who she had been before: where before she'd been strong, now she was brittle, and she always had a faraway look in her eyes, as if she were seeing something else rather than what was before her, waiting for Heaven while still on earth. She made arbitrary decisions for my future without asking me. She expected me to obey without a word of protest. And Papa, who was still not entirely the bluff, strong man he once had been, just went along with her, never thinking to say a word in my defense, to remind her that I might have a different opinion.

And Jasper was dead, after all.

_No. Not dead. _

It was a new voice, one I hadn't heard often. The flavor of those thoughtsthat voice's thoughts was different, a bit foreign. My head came up in shock, as I stared about the room, illogically looking for the speaker.

Not dead?

My old suspicions welled up inside me. I had long harbored doubts about Jasper's death. I'd asked myself, if I can hear the voices of the dead, if I can speak with spirits, then why can't I talk to him? Why hadn't he come to me and told me what happened, to at least give me a bit of peace?

_Not dead. _Again, that new voice, hesitant. But gaining confidence at being listened to.

_But like dead. Like dead, but worse. Better to be dead._

I felt my stomach knot inside me sickeningly; my hand clenched into a fist, snapping the quill, stabbing tiny splinters into my palm, but I didn't care.

"What do you mean, like dead, but worse?" I growled to the empty air. I dared them to not tell me. There was a pause, as if they were considering. "Tell me!"

_Watch._

And the whisperer swept me away for a moment, filling my mind with images, pictures that felt odd, didn't quite fit: they weren't my own images, they were the memories of _him_, seen through _his_ eyes.

A city, overshadowed by a mountain, the landscape dusty and strange, the houses whitewashed adobe. Mexico.

A campfire, flickering valiantly against the dark night. Sheep scattered everywhere around, sleeping in wooly piles.

_**Jasper!**_

But…was it?

It looked like Jasper…but not. I'd never seen a man so lovely in my life, and I never would again: he was perfect, his skin glowing in an unnatural way in the firelight as he fought with another man, another being who also looked so strange, so perfect, while my whisperer had watched…

Their eyes!

The eyes set in that perfectly planed and glittering face were red, red like blood, red like flames, and they were the eyes of a predator, long used to the ways of killing, cold and detached. I watched as my brother battled the other, watched as he ripped the man to shreds and cast the pieces into the campfire, sending up a billow of dense purple smoke which I could smell so intensely that I could almost taste it, like heavy perfume on my tongue…

And then, the red-eyed perfect monster that had been Jasper turned on me, on the man whose eyes I was peering out of, and suddenly, Jasper was there, gleaming teeth bared to the firelight, lunging, and then the sudden slash of white-hot pain—

"No!" I cried, throwing my hands up to cover my eyes, trying to make the sight go away: blood, my blood, _his_ blood, the blood of the man who was showing me his last memories, everywhere, on my brother's _face_, he was _drinking_ it, and the sounds, the growling! "Stop!"

And it did. The whisperer released me, his memories fading, but they had become mine, as well, and I could never forget them. I wished I could.

"What has happened to him?" I whispered, struggling not to let the tears break through again. I was tired of crying. I hadn't cried so much in years, at least not while awake. "What is he?"

_Immortal. Undying. Undead. Cold One. Vampire._

_**Vampire.**_

Never one for horror stories, I had still heard of those before. That was before Bram Stoker's "Dracula" had been written, before vampires became fashionable again, but I'd heard of them. That they actually existed wasn't so much of a surprise to me as it should have been—but after all, I was the girl who heard the dead.

"Vampire?"

The rush of whispers was almost overwhelming as they told me what they knew. After a few moments I'd had enough, my brain was hurting, and my heart felt sick within me. Should I be happy that he wasn't dead? Or would it have been better if he had actually died, rather than being turned into…that?

I wondered how it had happened, whether he'd had a choice, whether it had hurt him to be changed, whether he found joy in his new life. Did he still think of our family? Of me?

I thought about that last letter I'd sent him, so self-righteous and full of venom, and how those words were the last ones he'd ever had from me. I'd been so mortified by the idea that my brother had gone into eternity with those things I had said echoing in his mind. I'd been wanting, desperately, hopelessly, to be able to apologize to him, to tell him I loved him one more time.

Did I have that chance now? Could I find him? _Should_ I?

A chorus of horrified voices screamed at me, _"NO!"_

I wrinkled my nose, "But he's my brother. Surely he wouldn't hurt me? Even…now?"

Still, they told me in unison, it wasn't safe. _He_ wasn't safe.

I lay back against the pillows again and sighed. My whole body ached, my mind was spinning. So much in two days. Too much. To fall in hopelessly in love and to find out that my brother was alive—well, a kind of alive--and hopelessly unreachable in such a short period of time was too much.

What was I supposed to do?

I closed my eyes and felt the pressure of tears threatening again. Dammit! I had to be strong; I had to make the right decision.

But the right decision for who? For everyone else…or for _me_?

It was all so silly that I suddenly had to laugh. What was I fretting about? There was no guarantee that I would ever see William Standing Bear ever again. Just because I had had prophetic dreams in the past didn't mean that every dream I had was prophetic. And so my brother was a vampire. I couldn't change it. I was beating myself up over things I had no control over.

I had to let go. I had to let things happen the way they would happen. I couldn't control everything. I didn't have to be the good girl all the time who was always thinking about everyone and everything except herself.

So I was in love with a man I'd met once, and he was someone my parents would drop dead in shock over. So my brother was a vampire, a blood-drinking, sparkling immortal.

So what?


	7. Chapter 7: Adored

**Chapter 7: Adored**

Did I mention before about time passing quickly? Well, it did. Somehow.

I still don't know how I managed to make it through the week following my birthday without falling on my face a dozen times or more. I hardly slept more than an hour every night, so I was like the walking dead during the daylight hours. It must have been a combination of my whisperers warning me not to make a misstep, my own stiff resolve not to embarrass myself, and pure dumb luck. But I did it. I didn't fall down.

The days were easier. I had chores to do, lessons to attend, assignments to complete. Mama had set me a gigantic pile of sewing to do: I had uniforms, new dresses, and petticoats and such to make for school in the autumn. She cautioned me that Chicago in the winter is much colder than Texas ever gets, so the fabrics were heavier and more difficult to sew. Those were the days before sewing machines became widespread, so I passed many mind-numbing hours pushing needle through cloth, until my fingertips were swollen and sore. I did it all, without much presence of mind, all under Mama Dina's worried eye.

The nights were hard. I had a terrible time getting to sleep; my mind, which had been so sluggish during the daylight hours, somehow came alive when the sun set, and drove me insane with endless questions and problems. I would see images when I closed my eyes: myself in those awful school uniforms, William, Jasper in his army uniform, pictures of what I imagined a big city like Chicago to look like, William Standing(Bear)'s face, my brother the vampire, William, vampires, William, William…

You understand now. I think I was certifiably crazy by then.

When I did finally accomplish falling asleep, it was to vivid dreams that felt more real than my waking times. I would jolt awake with a gasp, often crying, the shreds of those dreams still playing around the corners of my mind. I would have to light a candle and reach for my journal to put them down, before they faded away. Then, to try to go back to sleep again was an agony of frustration. Often I would lay awake until dawn approached and I had an excuse to get out of bed…and begin the whole process again.

My mind was constantly filled with the two men who had become the most important things in my life: William and Jasper. How odd and just like strange little me, to have two such abstract and outlandish persons be so vital to my existence: one a man I'd met once in the flesh and who turned into a bear in my dreams, the other a dead brother who apparently was actually undead and a legendary monster.

_William._ I looked for him every day when I went outside, wondering vainly if he might have come up from Houston on some errand that he would use as an excuse to see me. I scoured the shadowy corners of the farm with desperate eyes, looking to see if his long, tall frame was leaning up against some random wall, waiting for me, smiling. I dreamed about him every night.

_Jasper._ I saw the pictures that whisperer had shown me, of his last moments alive, and every time they made my stomach churn sickly, thinking that my brother, who I had idolized, had killed and drank that poor Mexican man's blood. He was somewhere to the south, I knew, doing whatever it was a vampire is supposed to do. Kill people, I guess. But it just didn't sit right with me, that he was evil. Sure, vampires are evil, they say, but I refused to believe that Jasper could ever be evil, no matter what color his eyes were or what he ate. Or drank.

I also was having a hard time eating. The love-sickness, the insomnia and bad dreams, the worry and wondering, it all took a toll on my appetite, which had never been really impressive before all that began anyway. Mama Dina forced food on me, made my favorites to tempt me, sometimes made me sit at the table and would not let me up again until I'd managed to choke something down.

She shook her head and muttered darkly to herself a lot as she watched me, no doubt trying to figure out how to break whatever spell had been cast over me, or get rid of whatever spirit or demon had possessed me.

I found little bundles of herbs wrapped in muslin and tied with various colors of string stashed in odd places in my room—beneath my pillow, in my wardrobe, under my bed, wherever they could be placed. I knew what they were: little charms against evil, wards against bad dreams and such, that Mama Dina's mother had shown her as a girl. Poor thing, I knew she was worried about me, so I never had the heart to tell her it was just a waste of time and herbs.

Then, one sunny Saturday morning, I was tossing handfuls of meal to the chickens, and there _he_ was.

Just like I'd imagined him so many times before, he was leaning against the wall of the chicken coop, in the shade of the sloping tin roof. He was smiling at me.

I shook my head and blinked. Looked away, looked back. Blinked again. He was still there.

"Good morning, Virginia Whitlock. You said I could come see you, and here I am."

His voice…_velvet_. I felt a chill run the length of my body, but not the kind of chill that comes with fear: the kind that comes when you're about to do something truly foolish and terribly fun, a tremor of anticipation of forbidden delight.

I dropped the pail of meal, my fingers numb, and the stuff went everywhere.

"Drat!" I swore and bent down to pick it up.

William Standing laughed and came out of the shadow to help me. He knelt next to me and reached out with those big, strong, but strangely elegant, hands and without a moment's hesitation scooped the cracked corn and wheat up, dumping it easily back into the pail.

He was so warm! He did not touch me, but I could feel the heat of his presence like a furnace burning next to me, and I could smell his clean scent: leather and soap and woodsmoke, and something like sandalwood, which seemed to be coming from his long hair, which he had pulled back into a tail.

I turned and stared at him; I must have looked like a crazy girl, my eyes all dark-ringed from not sleeping, my mouth open a bit like an idiot as I drank in every beautiful inch of him. I couldn't believe he was real, I wanted to reach out and touch him to make sure I wasn't having dreams during the day, but I was afraid if I did he'd vanish into smoke like he did in my dreams.

He met my eye and smiled merrily; I noticed absently that he had very nice, straight white teeth, and that the tan skin around his dark eyes crinkled a bit with his grin in a very appealing way.

"There. All better now." He put the pail back into my still-numb hands and patted it, then straightened up, looking down at me from his great height. "Maybe once you finish this, we can take a walk?"

I nodded dumbly and realized that I was still kneeling there in the dusty chicken-yard and cursed myself for being such a silly fool.

He put out a hand to help me up, and I took it.

Oh, how his touch burned!

He raised me to my feet as if I weighed nothing more than a feather, and for a long, shining moment he held my hand anyway, still smiling at me. The heat I had sensed before as he knelt beside me poured into me at the touch of his fingers on mine, burning, but in a good way, like the heat of life itself, like the sun, nourishing me. I hadn't realized I'd felt cold until that moment, that I'd felt cold since that first dream the night of my birthday, where he'd disappeared into smoke and left me alone, freezing in the darkness without him.

"Miss Ginny!"

The spell was broken; he dropped my hand (regretfully?) and stepped back from me. I turned to look for who'd called me; it was Big John, standing in the doorway of the horse barn. He looked even more huge and dark and solid than ever as he stared William down with the narrowed, suspicious eyes of a father. He was pulling a long strap of leather, some piece of tack, across one palm over and over, worrying it.

"Good morning, John. How are you today?" William called to him, raising a friendly hand.

John didn't wave back, he just kept staring.

"What's brought you out this way, Will Standing?" he asked darkly, slapping that leather against his palm again.

I glanced from John to William and saw William flinch a bit at John's unfriendliness and not-so-subtle threat. He looked at me and for a moment our eyes met, and then he smiled a little again, as if seeing me reassured him.

"My boss let me have the day off, and I thought I'd come up here and check on this young lady's horse, make sure she likes her well enough."

John grunted and came forward out of the doorway to glare down at us. I shrank back from him, a bit fearful of him for the first time in my life. "You know as well's I do that if this girl had some problem wit' that horse, she wouldn't need _you_ t' see t' it. That's what _I'm_ here for," he finally said flatly.

William stood up a bit straighter and looked John in the eye.

"And I also came to ask Miss Virginia if she'd like to take a walk with me."

John blinked in surprise at the bold admission, and so did I. I darted another surreptitious look at William's face: he was calm and seemed completely sure of himself. He turned his head a fraction and looked at me, one corner of that gorgeous mouth quirking in a little smile.

"I promise you, John, that she's perfectly safe with me. Always. And I would never dream of making any…hmm…improper advances. You know I'm not that kind of man."

It was my turn to blink: I wasn't so sure I'd mind any improper advances. In fact, I wasn't sure if _I_ could keep from making some toward him myself.

John chuckled and the darkness seemed to lift from him as he looked back and forth between William and I, a slow, sly smile spreading across his dusky face. "So I do know, Will Standing. Ever'one knows you's a good man." Then he leaned forward to peer directly into Wiliam's face; they were almost the same height, I saw in shock.

"Just you remember that I'll never be far away. Don't matter if I know or don't know nothin' 'bout _you_, this girl's _special_."

William never hesitated. "I know that, John. I do know that for sure," he said intensely.

I bit my lip and looked away from them, the way they were facing each other down over me was disconcerting. I turned away from them both and finished throwing the meal to the chickens, who clucked and scratched and fought each other over their food as if the world hadn't just turned upside down.

I walked away from the men to go and hang the pail on its hook, turning to watch them surreptitiously.

They stood close together, pitching their voices so low I couldn't hear them. I couldn't tell if they were arguing or what, but when they both looked up at me simultaneously I began studying the ground at my feet as if it were the most interesting thing in the world.

I felt as if my bones were hollow and filled with air, as if I might float away into the wide blue sky at the slightest breath of wind. My mind was spinning, my body burning as it remembered the touch of his hand. He was really there, and he was really discussing something with Big John, probably his intentions toward me.

_His intentions!_

Thoughts crowded my head, me in a ridiculous white dress with flowers in my hair, the impossible wedding that I could never have with that man. Little dark-haired, blue-eyed children. A golden ring on my left hand, never leaving that finger til its owner was cold and long-gone.

I wanted it all. Like nothing I'd ever wanted before, except perhaps wanting Jasper to come home or not be dead.

I felt all giddy and silly, I'd never wanted marriage before, never thought of mooning after some man: I wanted to travel the world, didn't I? I wanted to see what lay beyond the horizon, follow my dandelion spores to wherever the wind took them. See and hear and taste and smell all those exotic things my whisperers had brought to me in my childhood dreams, those dreams which had filled me with the desire to be someone different than a plain little woman destined for domesticity.

_But what if you can have it all?_

I looked up with a start at that whisper, and I locked eyes with William Standing, who was staring at me like a thirsty man seeing a cold glass of water.

And I knew he wanted me the way I wanted him, impossible and ridiculous and silly as it was.

John was looking at William looking at me, and he seemed a little lost, a little sad; he looked at me and smiled gently, and I knew I had his blessing. Whatever that was worth, I had it, and it made me happy.

"Y'all don't go too far, now, hear me, Miss Ginny?"

William was standing next to me then, and he reached out and took my hand again. So warm, so solid, so _right_.

"Don't worry. We won't, John." I shot him a sideways look: I didn't need him to answer for me. But then I melted when I saw that grin that I'd seen in my dreams, warm as his hands. "I'll have her back soon, all in one piece. Promise."

Big John nodded and disappeared back into the horse barn without a backward look.

"So."

I cleared my throat nervously; I couldn't look up at him, looming over me. I had to stare down at our hands, linked together: brown and white, mine so small, his so large.

"So, let's go then." And we were walking, heading toward the creek where Jasper and I had played games with his friends so many years before.

To me as we walked there was nothing but the swish of my skirts through the grass, the feel of the warm sun on the top of my head (no bonnet, heathen thing that I was), the wind warm in my face as we walked…and more real than any of those things was his hand in mine, his warmth beside me as we went. I even imagined I could hear the faint thudding of his heart, which I fancied was beating a bit fast, the way mine was.

He started talking, and I just let him talk. He could have been reciting a recipe for oatmeal cookies or telling me how to curry a horse, it wouldn't matter. I listened.

"My family's from Dakota territory. My Pa died a while back, and my Ma put me in a special school when she got sick, down in Rapid City. I was twelve. She died a year later, and the state took me as a ward, sending me back East, to this Indian school in Indiana. I left there when I was sixteen, as soon as I could. I ran away."

I looked up at him. "Why'd you run away? Were they mean to you?"

He made a little sound deep in his chest, something between a grunt and a chuckle, but it was obvious he wasn't laughing. He shook his head and sighed, turning his head to look down at me.

"You don't know about Indian schools then, do you?"

I shook my head and felt my insides sink in shame: should I know?

He nodded. "I doubted it. They don't talk about that kind of thing much. But you might have read about them in the papers. All about how the Indians have to be made to accept the white culture and such, make them civilized, whatever that means."

I listened.

"'Civilized' means that they change your name, tell you that you can't talk your native language, you can't follow your religion, things like that. The school I was at, if the teachers caught you talking anything but English they'd beat you. If you didn't answer to the new, Anglo, name they gave you, they'd beat you. And god forbid they catch you praying to some heathen spirit. You'd _wish_ for a beating."

I held my breath and imagined him as a little boy, skinny and scared, not able to call himself by his own name. I felt the pressure of tears behind my eyes.

"That's awful," was all I could manage, my voice strangled.

He stopped suddenly, and reached out, tentatively, to put his hands on my upper arms, leaning toward me a little. I felt my heart stop, feeling the warm of his breath against my face, as he looked into my eyes.

"Virginia, I would've gone through a million years of awful to be able to be here now."

That was it. The earth and sky flipped, gravity disappeared, and I was floating in the stratosphere, carried away on those words.

"Huh?"

I could have slapped myself for that. _Huh?_

William Standing laughed then, and took my hand again, pulling me along as my dumb feet seemed to have forgotten how to walk properly. "Come on, let's get out of the sun."

Thankful that one of us had some kind of sense, I let him lead me down that familiar path, down the little hill and into the shady coolness of the creek bottom. I let him direct me to the big pile of boulders at the bend of the stream, tossed there carelessly ages ago by some forgotten flood, and we sat down there together.

He didn't touch me, except for my hand, which he kept firmly in his.

I finally found my voice. "So, how long has it been since you ran away, then?"

"Two years ago."

I started at that: I had imagined that he was at least twenty, he was so big and seemed so mature. He was only eighteen. Only three years older than me.

"And where'd you go after that? How'd you live? How'd you end up here?"

He grinned at all my questions. "Well, first, I think I need to tell you some other things, all right?" Then he turned those deep, dark eyes on mine, and I felt again that hollowness in my bones, but this time it was fire, not air, inside them, and it began consuming me from the inside out. "That's polite, right? We should be properly introduced."

I nodded mutely. I couldn't unstuck my tongue from the roof of my mouth.

"My name is _Mato Wihinape Wayag Nazi_. In Lakota it means something like, 'the bear who stands watching the sunrise.'" Then he patted my hand gently. "But don't worry. I don't mind William Standing. I know it's easier to say." He smiled. "I actually like Will. It seems strong, like 'I WILL' do something. Will Standing."

"You mean Will Standing _Bear_."

I couldn't help it, it just burst out; I clapped my hand over my mouth in horror, convinced he'd think I was crazy now.

William Standing, or William Standing Bear, or Mato Wihinape Wayag Nazi, or whatever he was called, simply looked at me, a bit surprised. But he didn't let go of my hand, or back away, or call me insane.

"How did you know that?" he asked quietly.

I bit my lip and looked away, at anything but at him, sitting there so calmly. But I had to tell him. Why lie? It wasn't as if this whole thing could work, after all. Perhaps I should just get all the unpleasant weirdness out of the way early, so he'd know how truly bizarre I was, and go his own merry way, wiping his forehead in relief at having narrowly escaped me.

So I told him. Everything.

I told him about my dreams, I told him about my whisperers. I told it all, from the fact that I'd remembered my infancy to the prophetic dreams the whisperers had shown me. The locusts, the drought, Jasper leaving. The words tumbled out in a rushing torrent, gaining momentum as they came, as if all my secrets were finally breaking through the prison I'd locked them in, eager to see the light of day.

The only thing I didn't tell him was about Jasper being a vampire.

William sat and listened to it all with an unchanging expression, his eyes calm and serious as they watched my face. He nodded occasionally, patted my hand every now and then. I imagined he was being polite, just waiting for me to stop so he could excuse himself and run, run away.

"…and then you vanished like smoke and you were gone, and now here I am with you, and I wish I knew what it all meant!" I finished in a rush.

I had never talked so much at one time in my entire life. My mouth was dry, my throat scratchy, and I felt empty, as if I had nothing left inside me anymore, as if all my odd secrets were the only things within.

William took a deep breath and let it out slowly, still looking into my eyes. I waited anxiously, steeling myself for the brush-off.

After all, who wouldn't be just thrilled to find out that the seemingly-charming young woman you have recently met claims to hear the voices of the dead, to have been prescient since birth, has dreams of the future, and is convinced that she is yours forever after only one meeting?

But he didn't run screaming into the hills. He reached out and put his hand on my cheek.

"I know."

Two short words had never seemed so full of importance, of meaning, in the entire history of the English language, I think. Actually, in the history of any language, ever.

And then, he leaned forward and kissed me.

It wasn't a fiery, passionate kiss; it didn't cause the earth to split open or the stars to fall from the sky. But when his lips (so soft!) touched mine, it was the alpha and omega of my life: it was the ending of what I knew, and the beginning of everything I ever wanted.

I closed my eyes and leaned into him; his hand pressed against my face, so warm and solid, and his scent, so clean and masculine, filled my nostrils. My heart skipped a beat and then took off running, pounding a joyful staccato rhythm so intensely I thought it might jump through my chest. My hand came up without me telling it that it could, and it found his hair, and I twined my fingers in it as easily as if I had done so since the day I was born.

Heartbeat and heartbeat, breath and breath, we were one in that long, timeless instant, and no one in the universe had ever felt that way before, I was sure.

When he finally pulled back and looked at me, I had nothing to say. Nor did he.

I stared into his eyes and tried to commit every line and shape and color of him to my memory, so that when we were eventually parted (because of course we would be, I thought), I wanted to have those memories to treasure forever. Maybe he was doing the same.

"Goodness!"

Again, I wanted to slap myself for saying something so completely and utterly dumb. _Goodness?_

And again, he laughed. Then I forgave myself a little bit, because the sound of his laughter was another something I wanted to engrave on my mind forever. It was the best sound in the world.

"Virginia Whitlock, when I left that Indian school in Indiana I knew I had something I needed to do. I couldn't deal with the falseness, the hypocrisy, the hatred anymore. I wanted to be myself again. But besides that, I knew I had something to do, and it wasn't there in that school, or on the road that school would have set me on."

He touched my face, chin, lips, then nose. Kissed the tip of it. My breath caught.

"I left the school in the middle of the night with nothing but a pen-knife, three dollars, a change of clothes and my mother's necklace." He reached into his shirt collar and pulled something out, so the sun caught it.

A silver circle, cris-crossed by silver wires, a tiny chunk of turquoise embedded in its center.

I reached into my collar and pulled mine out. William only smiled. "Of course."

A touch of his lips on mine, and fireworks everywhere.

"I ran until I found a railroad station, and then when the men weren't looking I boarded a train. Any train. It didn't matter. I knew my family was gone, Ma and Pa were dead, of course, but all the aunties and uncles had been sent away, to a reservation. If I went to where I knew as 'home' nothing would be there but empty land, maybe a white man or two, looking for gold."

I closed my eyes and listened, trying to see in my mind what he'd gone through.

"The train was headed south, I found out, and ended up in Houston. I got off before dawn and wandered around aimlessly, so tired and hungry: I hadn't eaten in three days, since the school, and that had been only bread and water, and it was too late to buy anything. I finally ended up just sitting down on the steps of a building and leaning against the door. I was so tired. I just wanted to sleep. So I did. I didn't care if the people who lived in the building hit me with brooms the next morning, I just wanted to sleep."

I dared then to catch his hand in mine and lift it to my lips. "And then what?"

"The next morning a woman woke me up. She was a nice white lady, she told me to come inside and wash up and have breakfast with her children. I couldn't believe my luck.

"Turns out, it was the parsonage for the local church I'd fallen asleep in front of. The woman was the preacher's wife, and she was the kind of lady that didn't care what anyone looked like or what they did, she just wanted to do right by them, and be able to look her God in the eyes on Judgment Day and be able to say she'd never turned a stranger away. Isn't that one of the things Jesus said, 'he who does unto the least of these, does so unto Me'?"

I nodded.

"So she fed me and let me take a bath, and she gave me some clothes of her husband's. Then she gave me a little money and told me to go see Walter Jenkins at the horse-yards, tell him that Mary Wilson sent me. That I might get a job if I wanted it, if I was a good, honest kid that I could make something of myself."

He chuckled. "I knew I was honest and good, so I went, and Walter hired me as a stable boy, taking care of the horses." His eyes glowed with the memory. "I'd always loved horses. My people love them, they were our greatest treasure, when we had them. Mr. Jenkins said I had a natural hand with them, and he trusted me after a while.

"And then, one day, he tells me, 'Son, take this horse up to the Whitlock place, and be careful with her. It's for the young lady's birthday.'"

I sighed, remembering that day.

"So I took that pretty little mare all the way up here, and she is a dream, I tell you."

"I know!"

"I know you do." Pat on the hand. "I left her with John, who I knew from a while back, but I didn't want to start back yet. I'd brought another horse to ride home, but I wanted to let her rest a bit before heading back, let the sun go down a little.

"So I was there in the shadows and I saw you come riding up on that pretty horse, and it was like someone opened the heavens and poured happiness down on me.

"You were so beautiful up there in the saddle, the sun in your hair and your eyes so blue, and you smiling so big and sweet. I'd never seen anything like you in my life. And I knew I had to talk to you, even though I knew you were so far beyond me."

William Standing's hand, which had been on my cheek, suddenly moved into my hair, and his fingers gently clutched a handful of it, drawing me closer. I stared, mesmerized, at his lips, as he whispered.

"I didn't care. I know you're mine. You always were, and you always will be."

And then came the kiss that split the earth open and caused the stars to fall.

I don't know what possessed my body, I had never known anything like that before, but it was as if something came alive inside me. My hands were everywhere, his too, my lips parted beneath his and tasted him, hot and sweet, his tongue and mine, our breath mingled, our hearts pounding against one another's as he pressed me back against the rocks. My fingers knotted in his hair, pulling it free of the thong binding it, and I reveled in the feel of it falling in my face as I let him push me back, back until I lay flat beneath him, kissing him like the harlot of Babylon, and not caring a bit.

My whisperers had been silent for so long, strangely, but they were suddenly there, roaring around me, almost unintelligible, so many speaking at once.

_**Yes!**_

He slipped one arm beneath me and pulled me against him, his breathing ragged against my mouth, I could hear his heartbeat pounding against my breast, the heat of his body burning into me as I pressed myself into him, trying to make us one and the same, never wanting it to end.

_This is crazy_, my mind said placidly, ignoring the passionate haze. _You just met this man. He is a complete stranger. Your parents would kill you if they knew you even spoke to him, much less let him do this._

_**Shut up!!!**_

And he's not doing it all. I'm doing quite well myself, thank you very much!

I didn't care about Indians and whites and schools and wars or Mama or Papa or anything else. We were a man and a woman who had been destined to be together forever, damn the consequences. It was the kind of thing you'd happily die for, the kind of thing the poets immortalized, the kind of thing normal humans sighed about and wept over in romantic stories, but rarely had the chance or fortitude to experience.

Because let me tell you something about true love.

_It ain't easy._

Yes, poets and authors write about it; young girls swoon over it; the concept is idealized in every way. But that's because it's something rare and precious and horribly painful, something not everyone can endure. You pay for true love, you suffer for it, you curse it and you regret it, but when you know you've had it you can look back and know it was worth it.

I don't know why I was lucky or unlucky enough to get what I got. But it was mine, for better or for worse, and I wanted everything I could get out of it.

That fine, beautiful man loved me from the first time he'd seen me, and I him, and in that few minutes of first innocent, raw passion we saw what was in store for us, and it was humbling.

He finally pulled back and his eyes were so deep, so dark, that I was lost in them.

"You have to come away with me. Now. Today."

Will was everywhere, everything. I knew when he pulled away from me I'd feel his absence as keenly as if one of my limbs had been cut off. His touch was everywhere, leaving a trail of fire behind it, as he adored me.

"_Marry me."_

My heart stuttered: could I do it? Could I go with him, leave everything behind, follow him into forever, not knowing anything but that the touch of his hand was the right thing?

Yes, I could.

And…no, I couldn't.


	8. Chapter 8: Accommodations

**Chapter 8: Accommodations**

_What am I doing?_

I sat up, almost pushing him off me. But not quite; my hands went out and trapped his wrists, holding him close, when he went to pull away.

"What did I do?" he whispered, and his eyes were so very haunted, seemed so appalled by the thought that he might have offended me, that I thought my heart would shatter into a million pieces. "Did I do something wrong?"

I shook my head, not able to speak yet. I was too flustered, and took a deep breath. "No," I finally managed, after a long, awkward moment, "No, nothing wrong at all. Very right, really." I smiled faintly up at him and he relaxed.

"Then what is it?" He reached up to brush my hair back from my face, and I was struck by his concern for me.

My parents hadn't asked me how I was in three years.

I shook my head. I didn't really know what was wrong. Nothing was wrong. Everything was wrong. "I just don't know what to do, Will."

Will nodded. "I know this is…this is so much, so fast…" He touched my cheek gently. "We'll take things as fast or as slow as you want to, Virginia. I know you're scared, I know you're worried about things, about your parents and all…"

All those things and more flashed through my head. But something else bothered me.

"Will, what did you mean, when you said, 'I know' earlier?"

He looked away, as if embarrassed by something, his fingers clenching mine tightly.

"I…I don't know exactly what I meant, or, maybe it's that there are so many things that I was trying to say right then, it's hard to put it all into words…"

I pulled our entwined hands to me, against my heart. "Try."

He sighed. "Well, first of all, I know how confused you are. I am, too." His smile as he looked into my eyes was rueful, but not regretful. "This isn't exactly what my Ma and Pa thought of when they imagined my future, I guess: they saw me as one of the leaders of our tribe. Marrying a girl I grew up with. Having a traditional life." He shot me a sly glance. "And we both know that's out of the question now, I think."

I flushed with pleasure and a bit of shame: pleasure at knowing he was mine and I was his…shame at knowing that he couldn't ever have that future his parents might have imagined for him. It wasn't possible anymore.

"And also," he went on, "I know what it's like to feel so different, like you have all your life. I don't mean to say that I am the same as you, but I'm different, too."

I grinned at him. "Don't be silly, Will." I thought for a moment, chose the most random, preposterous thing I could think of. "What, don't tell me you turn into a bear, like in my dreams!"

"No. Not yet. Probably not ever. But maybe, if it's necessary."

His words, so simple, so uninflected and serious, stopped my heart. "R-really?" I squeaked.

He met my eyes and nodded.

I took a moment to rearrange my views of the world, yet again.

All right, Ginny, let's see if we can make all this make some sense, I told myself. You already know you're a freak of nature: you hear the voices of the dead. That was always normal for me, though, it hadn't taken any getting used to. But I did know that my unusual extra sense wasn't normal for everyone else.

Then, to find out that my dead brother wasn't in fact "dead," and was a vampire living in sin in Mexico with some dreadful female of his new kind…That had been devastating. It had required me to do some serious soul-searching and re-evaluation of what I thought was possible or not. Not so much the living in sin part…that rather appealed to me now…but Jasper being a _vampire_. A monster. And deeper than that: that vampires exist, period. Legends come to life, living a few hundred miles away, with all of us blissfully unaware as they grazed us like cattle.

And now…Now, apparently, I had to accept that besides vampires there were also other things out there, things I didn't understand at all. It was a logical step in the progression of insanity, I supposed. If one kind of monster exists, then that means that others could, as well. The man I loved, the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with after only having seen him once before, that man also, it seemed, could turn into a bear.

_A bear?_

"A bear?"

He chuckled. "Yeah. A bear. Or, at least that's what the Elders said it would be. No one has made the change in a generation or so. But before, when they did, they were always bears."

"Like, grizzlies? Or black bears?" I couldn't keep the incredulity out of my voice. "What color are you?" The inane question made me want to slap myself again. My god, he was going to start thinking I was a complete moron, blurting out silly questions and phrases all the time.

But still, I remembered my dream, the fierce huge creature with my Will's eyes, shadowed and foggy with the insubstantial air of dreaming, I couldn't tell what color he was. I had thought it was symbolic, somehow, that he was my protector, and that my mind was projecting the image of a bear onto him, because I had always thought of bears fondly, big and warm and strong, somehow loveable. My favorite fairy tale had always been Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and I'd always been looking for the "just right" for myself, never thinking I could have it…and maybe now I had.

His chuckle deepened into an actual laugh. "I don't know, Virginia, I have never made the change, there hasn't been a reason to."

Hmm. I sat back and pondered that for a moment. "So, then, what is the reason you might change?"

Will smiled, flexing his fingers within mine. "Oh, not much. Threats to the tribe. Enemies. But now that the tribe is off its land, since our people have been moved around so much, things have gotten a little, hmmm, disorganized."

"Oh. Well, that's…that's really…interesting. I never would have thought that kind of thing really happened," I managed lamely. I didn't really know what to say.

Now I understood the "I know" thing from him: it was so much easier to agree and accept but not try to understand or explain.

"Mmmm." Will leaned forward and brushed my lips with his, which immediately set every one of my nerve endings to tingling madly. "Does it bother you? Knowing what could happen?" He held my face between his hot palms, I felt his breath against my skin, and he pulled me closer to him, fitting me against him. "Does it…scare you?"

How absurd. As if I could ever be frightened of him.

I giggled as he kissed me, which was an interesting feeling; I closed my eyes and just enjoyed the sensation of him, warm and soft and hard and _there_ against me. I'd never kissed a boy in my life, except Jasper or my father, and that had been in a totally different way…and I never would kiss another man.

"No. Not at all. I think we're quite a pair, actually," I said finally, when my lips were free again, and he was grinning down at me, his face glowing amid the dark curtain of his dark hair. "I can talk to ghosts and you become a bear. Sounds perfect to me."

We stayed there for a while; time has no meaning when you're young, giddy, and completely and stupidly in love. It says in the Bible that to God a thousand years is as to a day, and vice versa. I understand that completely. That sun-soaked morning blended into the heat of the afternoon, but it didn't matter, because we were there together, such a mismatched and unlikely pair, and we loved each other despite all the reasons not to.

When the sun began dipping toward the horizon, Will looked at me sadly and told me it was time to get me home. I pouted and stomped my foot prettily, but I knew he was right: Big John had known we were walking out together, and he would have told Mama Dina. My parents might have been completely clueless to my whereabouts, but Mama Dina would be waiting for me when I came back, and I shuddered to think of what her face might look like in her righteous wrath.

As he walked me home, we held hands, and I couldn't find it in myself to regret a second of the time we'd passed. We talked, easily, naturally as breathing, as if we'd known each other forever. I told him more about my dreams and my voices. I talked about Jasper, but I left out the vampire part again. I didn't understand why, but I felt on some gut level I should.

I told him about Jasper, and how his leaving had torn that hole in the fabric of our family that was just barely patched. And as I talked, I began to realize something: _I_ was that patch. I was the thing holding everything together. If I was gone, if I was ripped away from it all, then everything would unravel, and I would have the complete destruction of my family on my conscience.

I couldn't run away with him, no matter how much every fiber of my being wanted to.

I glanced sideways at him, and my heart thudded at the sight of him, so handsome. But beyond that, beyond his physical beauty, something radiated from him: a gentle warmth like a banked fire, a calmness that crept into my soul and quieted me when he was near. I had never felt safer, more loved in my life, even with all my memories: even as a baby, I hadn't felt so secure, while pressed against my mother's breast.

It was like we were made for each other. How could I deny it?

Just as I snuck looks at him, he did the same to me, and something inside me would throb in response: I was proud to know such a man loved me. But it didn't mean I was the most special, the most beautiful.

I was the most _blessed_.

I'd been ignoring them, because there was nothing of real consequence to what they said, but since the moment I had taken Will's hand the first time, my whisperers were all aflutter, murmuring all around me, and I knew they were pleased. I guessed I was doing the right thing, then, in loving him, as improbable as it seemed. They had guided me correctly so many times before; I had to trust in them.

We came in sight of the farm's border fence far too soon.

We stopped, and I turned to face Will, his hands clutched tightly in mind, damn the sweat and tingling from my fingers falling asleep.

"When can you come back?" I was amazed at how plaintive my voice sounded. All my pride, gone out the window. So much for Miss Independence. Here I was, the damsel in distress, sighing and waiting for her prince.

Will stepped closer, not touching me. I knew why: I could somehow feel the eyes on us. Someone was watching, from the barn, from the house. He wasn't ashamed to touch me, but he didn't want me to get in more trouble than necessary on his account, I knew it without a doubt.

"As soon as I can. I can't say when. But soon." I closed my eyes and let the sound of his voice roll over me, trying to absorb it into myself, like a snake on a hot rock, so I could bring it up later, when I was cold and alone in my bed, wishing for him. I knew that was how it would be.

I tried to put a brave face on. I didn't want to cry. But I did, a little, I couldn't help it. He caught a tear on his fingertip, and lifted it to his lips. "Soon," he murmured. "I promise." Then he looked toward the farm, his lips pressed into a tight, worried line. "Go on now. Before they come and drag you home."

I knew it was right, what he said, but I couldn't make my muscles move, my body just didn't want to leave him. Finally, he had to turn and walk away. The sight of his back to me made every inch of me hurt.

"Soon, Virginia Whitlock. Soon. You'll be Virginia Standing Bear before you know it."

The words drifted back to me on the hot, late-afternoon breeze, and I took some comfort from them. I watched him go, getting smaller and smaller against the vast horizon as he left me, and then he was gone.

"Come on now, baby. Come on inside."

Strong, warm hands turned me around and pushed me toward the house. The smell of cinnamon and cloves. I let it happen, numb.

I found myself in the kitchen. I put on my apron and began dicing carrots without a thought, my body just stepping in and taking over in the absence of direction from my mind. The rhythm of the knife against the cutting board, the repetitive motion of scooping up the pieces and rinsing them, it soothed me, but most of all, it allowed me to think.

All right, Virginia, you have some things to set straight here, my mind said.

First of all: you are in love.

Second: you are in love with a man your family will never accept. Ever.

Third: you cannot just walk away from your family to be with him. No matter how much you want to.

Fourth: he turns into a bear. But that doesn't matter so much.

Fifth: you are in love.

Round and round they whirled, all those thoughts, all those feelings. I was so glad to be cutting those carrots. If I'd been doing anything else, like stirring the soup or rolling out the biscuits, I might have fallen into the pot or rolled the dough to paper-thinness.

What to do, Ginny? I asked myself. What to do?

No matter what I chose, someone got hurt in the end.

If I chose to leave and follow my heart, I knew that so much pain and destruction would follow in my wake. I knew, with every part of me, that if I left that soon after I would get a letter telling me my parents were both dead.

If I chose to stay, I could never be with Will. I would have to cut him off. I would have to go to that accursed school in Chicago, and I'd eventually end up marrying some dull, redneck rancher or merchant, the son of a friend of my father's, and I'd end up just like all those women on pedestals I'd told myself I would never be.

Was I a monster because I wanted what _I _wanted?

Monsters. The term jolted me. The definition of the word "monster" had taken on new meaning to me.

What is a monster, after all?

Was Jasper a monster? He'd become what he was through no wish of his own, and now that he was a vampire, he was simply following the directives of his body. Was that monstrous?

William Standing Bear apparently could, in the presence of the appropriate threat, transform himself into a bear. Was that monstrous?

And also…I heard and spoke to the dead.

Was I a monster?

"Baby! Pay attention!"

I didn't realize noticewhat had happened until I looked down and realized I'd cut a sizeable chunk out of the tip of my index finger, and saw the blood. So much for cutting carrots being better than anything else. Stupidly, I stared at the blood running down my finger, over the back of my hand, soaking into my sleeve.

Once again, those hands, so strong and sure, cleaned and bandaged me, then bundled me up the stairs to my room. "Stay here, chil', you're no use t' anyone, not even y'self."

The door closed, and I was alone in the dark with my monstrous thoughts.

The pain from my finger suddenly made itself known: a bright, jagged, throbbing pain that helped me tune out the craziness. Pain is good for that, it pares down all the excess and makes you see what it really important.

"What do I do?" I asked aloud to the darkness. I sat down on my bed and pulled my knees up against my chest, careful of my pulsing finger. "Help me. You've always helped me before. Help me now. I want to do the right thing for everyone."

_Silly girl._

_You can't do what's right for everyone. Each person has their own path to walk, and sometimes, when your path crosses another's, it can't be helped: the other gets hurt._

_You have to do what is right for you, even if it means hurt._

_Hurt for others, hurt for you._

_You have to live your own life. Your family makes their own choices._

_Know thyself, Virginia Lucille Whitlock. Know thyself._

Know thyself. I knew that quote.

I got off the bed and went to my bookshelf, pulling out my Classics textbook. I loved that book, so full of beautiful and bizarre myths from ancient Greece, so full of a savage and compelling history. "Know thyself."

Socrates was the philosopher most often credited with that particular piece of edification. But it was also engraved upon the lintel of the door leading into the temple of the Oracle of Delphi: Know Thyself. How ironic, that the motto emblazoned upon the entrance of a place that doubtful mortals went to in search of wisdom admonished them to know themselves.

Who is Virginia Lucille Whitlock?

Who is Ginny?

I sat back down heavily, not feeling the pain of my finger anymore. I stared out the window at the black night sky and I asked myself: who are you?

When I was a child, I had been carefree, happy, without regrets. I had lived every moment for itself, painful or pleasurable. I hadn't known right or wrong, I'd just _existed._ I hadn't asked permission from anyone for anything. I'd joked and pranked and laughed as loud as I wanted. I'd behaved like a heathen child, with no respect for decorum. I was a mess.

As I got older, I realized that there was such a thing as society and manners and rules of conduct, often due to the pain of a swat with a switch or a ruler, or occasionally the belt. But I accepted them as I wanted and did as I pleased, regardless of what anyone else thought. I did the bare minimum to be presentable and proper: I was a tidy room with a messy closet, the door closed tightly against the disorganization within. I was a free spirit, governed by no one, inside my own head.

Then…then Jasper left and I inherited, whether I wanted to or not, the heavy mantle of familiar responsibility. Suddenly, in his absence, I was in charge of making sure my parents were happy, and part of ensuring that happiness was doing the "right thing" in their eyes.

I had worked so hard during those years. A child still, I'd put aside my childhood and grown up, I'd made myself strong enough to deal with the things around me. I'd opened that closet door and cleaned it all up, putting everything away neatly, shelving my rebellion and my carefree ways. I'd endured Papa's drinking and indifference. I'd endured Mama's depression and disregard. I'd taken care of everyone but myself. Always, they came first.

And now?

Now, finally, there was something _I _wanted, with all my heart, soul, and body.

William.

And what should I do? Should I keep up the habit of self-denial? Should I let them cut me off from the thing, the person, I knew would complete me? The person who _had_ completed me?

There had to be a way to do everything. There had to be a way to accommodate their needs and my wants. But who was I kidding?

I didn't just want Will. I _needed_ him. It wasn't an option anymore: if I couldn't be with him…I didn't want to think about it. He was my cold glass of water in the desert. I thought I might die of thirst without him.

What was wrong with me?

This wasn't normal. It wasn't natural. My mind kept throwing up opposition.

"But I'm not normal. I'm not natural, and neither is he!" I screamed back.

Be a good girl. Go away to Chicago and try to forget him. You'll get over him. You're a child.

_**NO.**_

I had never heard such a thunderous chorus of them all.

So what do I do? I begged them silently.

_Make accommodations. _

What on earth does that mean?

They laid it all out for me. Me, putting on a show for everyone, being accommodating to their needs, their wants for me, at least on the surface. Smiling and being the good girl. Not complaining. Helping. Accommodating them…while planning for myself.

I saw myself Pplanning my departure for school. At Tthe railroad depot, blowing kisses to my family.

Then…Jjumping off and into Will's arms. He'd have my Belle there. Running away.

Marrying him in a little Mexican chapel, flowers in my hair.

_**Yes.**_

I went to bed and I slept dreamlessly for the first time in forever. I slept the sleep of the just, the sleep of one who has made her peace with the world.

The next morning, I arose rested and completely refreshed, ready to make everyone believe me. I went down to my chores singing. I played the role of the dutiful and happy daughter. I sewed my uniforms. I rode my new horse, alone, into the hot vastness of the prairie. I studied and did my lessons perfectly. I made my accommodations for everyone else: I put a brave face on it. I put a happy face on it. I said goodbye to my life over and over again as I went through the motions.

But every minute, every second, I was with him, in my head and in my heart.

I never stopped scanning the horizon, or searching the shadows for him. I knew he'd be back one day soon, that smile on his face, that slow, sweet smile just for me.

I felt an almost magnetic pull toward him. At any point in time I could stand still and relax and know where he was, far away from me, but my mind found his as easily as if we were standing inches apart. I often stopped and closed my eyes and felt him, and knew he was doing the same, miles away, standing transfixed and thinking of me.

Mama Dina watched me with growing suspicion and worry, but she never said anything: she knew what was coming. Big John watched me too, as if he were waiting for me to fly away on the wind. It was maddening, knowing that every move I mad was examined and pondered and analyzed by them. I had to remind myself over and over again that they loved me, they only wanted the best for me. I'd swallow down my indignation and smile sweetly at them…and I think that made them even more suspicious, actually.

One morning, I was currying Belle in the barn when it occurred to me that I had something to ask Big John. I'd forgotten all about it, in all the drama with Jasper and Will.

"John," I called to him. He was on the other side of the barn, checking on Papa's favorite horse's shoes. He stuck his head up over the side of the stall, eyebrows raised, tense. "When are you going to tell me the story about the necklace? Mama told me you would."

He grinned in relief, and I wondered what he'd thought I might say. Probably thought I was going to ask him to lie for me or something, like I was sneaking away to meet Will.

I wished!

"Lemme get this finished real quick, an' I'll come over there."

I went back to my own work, although honestly there wasn't much to do: Belle was curried and combed so often I rarely raised any dust at all when I took the brush to her. She gleamed like a pearl. A few minutes later, John came and knelt down beside us, picking up Belle's feet one at a time, inspecting them.

"Well, y' know my Pa was Indian. Ojibwe tribe, or Chippewa, as the whites call 'em. Same word, but whites jus' can't say it right." His dark eyes twinkled up at me; I laughed. "His family, his tribe, was from up north, what they call Minnesota now. I was only a little baby when I was there, I don' remember it at all. Pa left home when he was a boy, he had itchy feet, he always said, but he always tol' me it was terrible cold up there, so I don't think I'm missin' much, not rememberin'." We smiled again.

"Now, Pa went further South, ended up in Kentucky, where he started workin' for a blacksmith as a apprentice. When he got big enough he took over the business. Then he met an' married him a Negro woman, my Ma. He said she was just too pretty to give up. She was a freedwoman, her old master in Georgia had died an' he freed all his slaves. Ma took 'er freedom an' she ran north, ended up in Kentucky, an' met my Pa.

"They was happy, but they had a awful time with it, no one wanted 'em around, mixed race couples ain't exactly welcome, especially mixed Black an' Indian…so they thought about movin' back up north. Pa said he thought his Ma an' Pa would taken 'em in; Ma was carryin' me at the time, so they traveled real slow. Made it up there just before the first snow fell, Ma said.

"So my grandparents took 'em in, an' I was born there. When I was 'bout two or so, Pa started hearin' stories 'bout California an' how there was lots of people headin' West, lookin' for more opportunities, an' a man could make his own fortune there how he liked it. So, he decided to go an' see what it was all about, an' Ma wouldn't see 'im leave without her.

"My Grandpa had died right after I was born, so when my Pa wanted to leave, my Grandma said she'd go with 'em. Oh, Pa argued with her for days, but she jus' said she wouldn't stay there all alone. My Pa was her only baby. She said she wanted t' help my Ma with me, and Ma loved my Grandma, her mother in law, so when them two women ganged up on 'im, Pa jus' gave up."

I laughed, and so did John, whose eyes were dreamy and a bit wet with memory.

"So there we went, Pa, Ma, Grandma, an' me, trekkin' west. We never made it to California, we stopped in Oklahoma Territory, Pa got offered a job at a smithy, and no one really looked twice at us, which was good. We settled down there.

"Now, here comes what you're wantin' t' hear." John reached out and ruffled my hair a little. "I'm surprised you been so patient."

I just nodded and waited for him to go on.

"My Grandma, she was getting' on in years by then, but she raised me right beside my Ma. She taught me her language an' told me all the stories an' history. She said she had to, 'cause my Pa didn't really care much 'bout it.

"She told me 'bout all the spirits and the legends. An' one of them was the dream catcher."

And something seemed to come over him then, his voice changed a little, deepening, taking on a singsong rhythm, as if he were channeling someone else, or reciting something so deeply ingrained in his mind that it came effortlessly; his accent dropped away until it was almost unnoticeable.

"_This is the way the old Ojibwe storytellers say Asi-bi-kaa-shi (Spider Woman) helped Wa-na-boz-hoo bring Grandfather Giizis (Sun) back to the people_, Grandma tol' me. _To this day, Asibikaashi will build her special lodge before dawn. If you are awake at dawn, as you should be, look for her lodge and you will see how she captured the sunrise as the light sparkles on the dew which is gathered there._

"_Asibikaashi took care of her children, the people of the land, and she continues to do so to this day. Long ago in the ancient world of the Ojibwe Nation, the Clans were all located in one general area of that place known as Turtle Island. When the Ojibwe Nation dispersed to the four corners of North America, to fulfill a prophecy, Asibikaashi had a difficult time making journeys to all those baby cradle boards, so the mothers, sisters and Nokomis (grandmothers) weaved magical webs for the new babies using willow hoops and sinew or cordage made from plants. The shape of a circle represents how Giizis travels across the sky."_

John smiled and inscribed a circle in the air in front of me. Then he continued, and I closed my eyes. Listening to him like that, I could almost see his grandmother, brown and wrinkled like a walnut, bright black eyes twinkling and wise. I could hear her voice in his, talking to me through his memories of her.

"_The dream catcher filters out the bad ba-we-dji-ge-win (dreams) and allows only good thoughts to enter into our minds when we are abinooji (asleep). A small hole in the center of the dream catcher is where the good bawadjige may come through. With the first rays of sunlight, the bad dreams will perish_.

"_So when we see little Asibikaashi, we should not fear her, but instead respect and protect her. In honor of their origin, the number of points where the web connects to the hoop are eight for Spider Woman's eight legs, or seven for the Seven Prophecies. It is traditional to place a feather in the center of the dream catcher; it means breath, or air. It is essential for life. In the cradle board, a baby watched the air play with the feather and was happily entertained with the blowing feather_. '_I put one over your cradle board when you were a baby, John, and you never cried from nightmares_,' Grandma said."

John opened his eyes again and grinned at me. "An' so now you know." His voice was the same as always, and I began to wonder if I was crazy. "I didn't put no feathers on this one 'cause I knew you'd wear it 'round your neck, an' anyways, you ain't no baby no more." I shivered, still hearing the echo of his grandmother's voice in my mind.

_Because I've always been here. From the day you were born, I've been here with you._

I gasped in shock. I knew that voice, she had, indeed, been with me always. That voice was one I'd trusted the most. Could it really be _her_?

_Namid._

I looked up at John. "What was your grandmother's name, John?"

He sighed wistfully. "Namid. It means 'star-dancer' or somethin' like that, she said."

To cover up my shock, I blurted out, "What's your real name?"

"John."

We both laughed until our stomachs hurt and we were gasping for air; tears streamed down my face. John! I'd been expecting something so much more…exotic!

As I sat and wiped my eyes, I wondered again about his grandmother, and her voice: it had been whispering in my ear since I was a baby. She had brought so many things to me in my dreams: deep green forests blanketed with snow, frozen lakes stretching to the horizon, the scent of the pines and the cries of the egrets among the reeds.

I shivered again, realizing suddenly that she, Namid, had been a _real_ person, someone that John had known. Of course I'd always known the voices belonged to real people, but it had been so removed; I had no frame of reference to put them in. I had no idea when most of them had died, except for the one who had shown me his death at Jasper's hands.

But I needed to get more used to the supernatural touching me, more accepting that what is _weird_ can also be _real_. It had been with me from the beginning of my life, and it would be there until the end: that other world just beyond the one I walked in every day—and now I knew that the everyday world was also walked by other creatures I'd never even imagined could be real.

I reached into the collar of my dress and pulled out the pendant. Seven points anchored the mesh of tiny wires to the outer hoop. The silver caught the sunlight streaming in through the barn door, and it did, indeed, look like a spiderweb alight with dew, the tiny turquoise beads clinging like water droplets. I touched the small hole in the center, the hole where the good dreams would be let in, supposedly.

I'd had dreams, lots of them, many of them bad, although I didn't sleep much anymore. My waking times were like dreams. I never wore the necklace to bed, I didn't want it getting tangled up in my hair or clothes as I tossed and turned. Perhaps I should keep it on all the time?

The sounds of a wagon rolling up into the stable yard distracted me, and made John jump up and go see who had come. I felt my heart leap into my throat, the exact opposite direction my stomach took, which seemed to plunge into my feet. My mouth dried up and my eyes teared up. Who could it be? Maybe, maybe, it was _him_?

I followed John at a more discreet pace, but every slow step was an agony, since my rabid curiosity seemed to be pulling me along bodily. The thudding of my runaway heart increased when I saw the logo on the side of the wagon: Jenkins.

But it wasn't him. Another boy, younger, freckle-faced and buck-toothed, was up on the high seat holding the reins. "Hey, Big John!" he called merrily, jumping down. "Boss sent up those things you ordered." He reached into the back of the wagon and handed John a big parcel, wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine.

"Much obliged, Archie, tell your boss I said so, all right?" John motioned for the boy to follow him and started toward the kitchen. "C'mon in, lemme get Dina t' give you somethin' t'drink 'fore you head back down to Houston."

"Sure, John. Just gimme a minute to make sure the horses 're set, all right? I'll be right there." Archie waited for a moment until he saw the kitchen door close behind John, then he turned and grinned at me, impudent and bold as brass.

"So, you're her, huh?"

I blinked. "I'm who?"

Archie groaned dramatically. "Oh, don't play dumb. Will's girl." He winked at me, then glanced around nervously, making sure no one was watching. "He couldn't come, but he told me to see you."

I bit my lip and tried hard not to cry. "_Couldn't_ come?" Not didn't want to come?

Oh, Ginny, shut up. Silly, self-doubting little voice, go away!

He laughed. "Yeah, couldn't. Boss needed him, but he spared me to come all the way up here to bring this stuff." He dug into his pocket and pulled something out: a small package, wrapped similarly to the bigger bundle he'd given John, which he passed surreptitiously to me. "But he wanted to real bad. I've worked there for a year now, and I've never, ever seen Will mad. Not 'til today. And boy, was he ever! I mean, he is a real bear when he's put out!"

I had to stifle a laugh behind my hand, stuffing the package into the pocket of my skirt . Oh, if he only knew, I thought!

"Thank you, Archie. I appreciate it," I finally said, but my mind was not there: it was in my pocket, trying to figure out what was in that little package. "And…well, tell him I said hello, if you don't mind?"

Archie grinned. "Sure!" He scratched his head, and then his smile turned shy, and he blushed and looked away. "He said you were pretty, but I didn't think you'd be _this_ pretty. He's a lucky guy."

I giggled. Wearing my old workaday dress, hay in my hair, which was just pulled up into a graceless knot at the back of my neck, dusty-kneed from kneeling in the dirt beside Belle…Well, I'd take the compliment, no matter how much I felt it wasn't deserved. And besides, Will had said I was pretty, he'd spoken of me to another boy…"Thank you, Archie. I appreciate your help."

His impudent grin returned and he turned to go. He'd taken a few steps when he stopped and looked back at me. "Oh, I almost forgot!"

I waited impatiently, fingering the twine holding the paper onto the package. "Yes?"

"Will said, he'll see you on Sunday, around noon. He said you'd know where."

Fireworks!

Archie must've seen some of the explosions I was feeling inside painted upon my face, because he laughed and ran off to the kitchen.

I looked around nervously, wondering if anyone was watching. Of course they were. But I couldn't see anyone behind the muslin curtains in the kitchen window, so I could pretend I didn't know. I forced myself to walk slowly, sedately, back into the barn, where I let myself into Belle's stall. I carefully shut the little door behind me and went into the corner and sank down into the straw, my knees turning to jelly.

With trembling fingers I undid the twine and clumsily pulled off the paper.

Inside was a letter, several pieces of paper carefully folded into a small, tight square, and there was something hard inside it. Impatiently, I unfolded the pages and the something fell out onto my skirt: something bright and shiny, and very familiar.

It was his necklace. His dream catcher, which was so similar to mine. The only real difference was that it was a bit heavier, and the stones were a bit larger, set into the silver wire.

"Oh!" I gasped. Why had he sent it to me?

I smoothed the letter atop my knees, and looked at it for a moment. His handwriting was even and neat, but it looked like he'd written this hastily, or was excited, by the way it slanted across the page. I took a deep breath and began to read.

**Dear Virginia,**

**I'm so sorry I couldn't come myself. Mr. Jenkins originally told me I could make this delivery to your house, but then he changed his mind, We got in a new horse that is causing problems, and he doesn't trust Archie with things like that, so Archie got to go. Lucky guy.**

**I have been thinking about you all the time. I can't stop seeing your face. I still can't believe this is happening to me. I dream every night about you, and I always feel like I know where you are, even though you're miles away. I hope you feel the same about me.**

**I know I can't say a lot of things on paper, I don't want your parents to find out and for you to get into trouble, but I think I have a plan for us to be able to be together, and I want to tell you about it. I have to go ask Mr. Jenkins if I can have a day off on Sunday to come see you and tell you. If he says yes, then I'll tell Archie to relay the message to you.**

**I'm sending you my necklace. I know you already have one of these, but it's not the same: this one is mine, it belonged to my mother, and now it's yours. It's all I have to give you right now, but it's a promise that I make good on, I want to give you everything. So put it around your neck and carry a little piece of me with you everywhere you go, and I hope when you dream at night, it brings my dreams to you. Maybe we can be together when we sleep****, even if we're far apart. My mother told me that things happen in dreams, sometimes. I think she was a lot like you.**

**I have been writing down a bunch of things, keeping a diary of my thoughts and dreams, and I have also been trying to remember all the old stories that my family and the Elders told me about our people. I think it's important for me to remember, and for you to learn, because I know you'll want to anyway. So I wrote down something for you, the story of how the Lakota people believe the dream catcher came to them. I'm sure you've heard other stories, but this one is ours. I hope you like it.**

"**Long ago when the world was young, an old Lakota spiritual leader was on a high mountain and he had a vision. In his vision, Iktomi, the great trickster and teacher of wisdom, appeared to him in the form of a spider. Iktomi spoke to the old man in a sacred language that only the spiritual leaders of the Lakota could understand. **

"**As he spoke Iktomi took the elder's willow hoop which had feathers, horse hairs, beads and offerings on it and began to spin a web. He spoke of the cycles of life....how we begin as infants and move on to childhood, and then to adulthood. Finally, we go to old age where we must be taken care of once again as infants, thereby completing the life cycle.**

"**Iktomi said, 'In each time of life there are many forces and choices made that can affect the harmony of nature, and interfere with the Great Spirit and all of his wonderful teachings.' Iktomi gave the web to the Lakota elder and said, 'See, the web is a perfect circle but there is a hole in the center of the circle. If you believe in the Great Spirit, the web will catch your good dreams and ideas - - and the bad ones will go through the hole. Use the web to help yourself and your people to reach your goals and make good use of your peoples' ideas, dreams and visions.'**

"**The Lakota elder passed on his vision to his people and now the Sioux Indians use the dream catcher as the web of life. It is hung above beds or in homes to sift dreams and visions. The good in their dreams are captured in the web of life and carried with them...but the evil in their dreams escapes through the hole in the center of the web and are no longer a part of them. They believe the Dream Catcher holds the destiny of their future."**

**You are the destiny of my future, you are the dream caught in my dream catcher, Virginia.**

**I love you.**

_**Will **_

I closed my hand around the dream catcher and I held it to my heart. Somehow, I knew that I would be able to sleep that night, and my dreams would be good ones.

_Author's Note:_

_The legends about the Dreamcatchers that I have told here, both the Ojibwe and the Lakota Sioux ones, are two of many, many stories concerning the origin of the dreamcatcher. This object is a symbol that is venerated in a majority of the Native American population in the United States and Canada; each tribe has its own version. But regardless of the origin of the dreamcatcher, the purpose is always the same: to sift out the bad dreams, to only channel in the good ones, to guard the sleep of the dreamer, to keep nightmares away. _


	9. Chapter 9: Adieu, Adios, AlohaGoodbye

**Chapter 9: Adieu, Adios, Aloha…Goodbye?**

And now we come to one of the longest and truly most trying times of my life.

Unlike the months and years after Jasper's "death," I wasn't miserable. Well, not miserable in the same way. I was definitely miserable, because I was denied the thing I wanted the most, but it wasn't like the crippling grief I'd experienced then, before I knew that Jasper was, indeed, still alive. In a way, at least.

You see, I had months to go before I turned sixteen. And sixteen was the age, at that time in Texas, when a child was considered an adult, and could marry without her family's consent. This was particularly important to me, because I wanted to marry Will with every fiber of my being, as soon as possible. Actually, I could have happily done without the ceremony and just run away with him to live in sin…but Will, it turned out, was a stickler for conventions and honor. Darn him. He refused to go beyond kissing and mild petting until we were legally wed.

He told me we could get married before I turned sixteen if I let him ask my parents for my hand. It was done in those days: I knew girls from church who had gotten married at fourteen, and they hadn't even been "in the family way" at the time, no shotgun wedding. Children grew up faster then, and I faster than most, given my unusual nature. I argued this passionately with my beau. I laid out the points in favor of this in all their logical splendor. I would have made a lawyer proud. But he didn't bend. He either wanted their permission to wed, or we had to wait. He kept pushing for asking them. I considered. For about thirty seconds. And then I discarded the idea.

You see, I knew my parents. The chances of my parents granting that proposal were slim and none; actually, to the contrary, there was an excellent chance that, if Will did go and plight his troth in the honorable fashion, poor naïve man, that they'd bundle me off to Chicago on the next train north, damn the actual date classes would start. Or, even more likely, they'd ship me back East to live with Mama's kin, who wouldn't let me see the light of day for however long it would take to get me to forget William Standing Bear.

Which would be forever. I'd never forget him.

So I decided I should wait. A few months of denial of the flesh as opposed to a lifetime of deprivation? I'll take the seven months, thank you very much.

School was scheduled to start at the end of August, which gave me another three months at home. Then, I had another five months until March, when my birthday rolled around again. Never had minutes, hours, days, weeks, months mattered so much.

What was I to do once August came? Was I to go to school and play the good girl, until March came? I contemplated the possibility and choked on it. There was no way I could bear it, being cooped up with a bunch of stuffed-shirt pretentious little misses for so long. I'd get sent home. I'd make a scandal without wanting to. I'd cause problems without meaning to.

Now, there's an idea! Perhaps I should go, and let them send me home!

I made the mistake of mentioning this idea to Will, during one of our Sunday rendezvous. We had a rhythm, a pattern: every Friday, like clockwork, I'd go and check the apple tree by the front gate, to see if the fruit were ripe yet. And there it would be, waiting for me: a note, tucked into the little hollow in the twisted bole of that tree, the hollow that Jasper and I had discovered years ago, and used to hide candy in, candy stolen from the kitchen beneath Mama Dina's benevolent eye.

I was like a child again, when I found those notes. I had no idea when he put them there, or how he got there. Houston was a good thirty miles away, a great distance back then, a day trip, really. But the notes were always there, and I'd snatch them up greedily, like a child with sweets, and seek out a quiet place to enjoy the words.

He'd write to me of his week, what interesting things he'd done, his thoughts and dreams of me. He'd tell me stories, old Lakota legends. He was teaching me about his people, so that when we were husband and wife and one day we had our own babies, I could tell them the stories of their forefathers, as his mother had whispered them to him as an infant, like his grandfather had told him as a child.

I thought about this, about carrying and bearing his children, and shivered in anticipation: he entrusted me with his heritage, with who _he was_, completely. It didn't matter that I wasn't the Indian girl his Ma had imagined him with, I was perfect for _him_, he said, with complete assurance. So I read and reread those notes, those stories. I committed them to memory, so I could recite them to our children perfectly. I practiced the strange words and phrases in the Lakota language, trying to make them perfect. And I tried not to imagine how those children might be conceived, because those months until March were trickling by like cold molasses on a December morning.

And at the end of the note, he'd tell me when and where to meet him on Sunday, if he could get away. Sometimes he couldn't, and I'd pass the day disconsolate and weeping in my room, feeling his absence like a part of my own body, my arm or leg, was missing. I fancied he felt the same, because the next time we'd see each other his passion would be particularly intense. He'd grab me up and hold me so tightly, as if he'd been afraid of never touching me again, and I knew he loved me, truly.

That particular Sunday, when I mentioned my idea about being bad and getting kicked out of school, I lay against his chest and ran my fingers through his hair. He normally wore it pulled back and tucked up under his hat, as to not offend the whites, but when we were together, I made him take off that darn hat and loose the thong that bound his hair, so dark and silky and beautiful. I prayed that our children would inherit that beautiful hair, because mine was a lovely color, sure, but it was unruly and coarse and wild.

"I was thinking, maybe I'd just be bad and make them send me back here. Then Mama and Papa would be glad to get rid of me, right?"

Will stiffened beneath me, his hand coming up to take mine. "Sweetheart, you must never do anything so contrary or mean-spirited."

I shrugged. "Why should I care what they think? They just want to keep us apart!"

Will took me by the shoulders and looked into my eyes. "Virginia Whitlock, you are above that. If you must go to school, you must go to school. You must present your best face, prove that your parents raised you with honor, and not disgrace them. It's not as if they're sending you to a torture chamber."

I pouted. "But we'd be apart!" I touched his nose, our special gesture. "Chicago is a long way away, you know."

Will smiled and it melted my pout. "Never. I'll follow you wherever you go. I can't be separated from you for too long, or I'll go mad." He brushed the hair back from my forehead and kissed me gently. "I will be there. And when you're sixteen, if you are ready, we will be married."

I slipped my hands up under his shirt and thrilled at the sensation of the hard muscles of his stomach and chest beneath my fingers; he shivered and closed his eyes involuntarily. "I'm ready _now,_" I hissed.

And I was. Wanton little hussy that I'd become, all I wanted was his weight upon me, his lips against my ear as he made love to me, my fingernails digging into the flesh of his shoulders with uncontrolled passion. I had never known what lovemaking might be like before, but I envisioned it now, with him, I saw it and longed for it. Our bodies were meant to be together, we were yin and yang, puzzle pieces destined to fit together perfectly.

"Stop it now. You know better," he gasped breathlessly. "That's not fair, Ginny. Stop."

So I did, and I pouted again. He was always trying to be honorable, for both of us. I couldn't fault him for it, it just showed what a strong and fine man he was. But it sure was frustrating, though.

"So you will go to school. And when it is time, I will be there. Agreed?"

I pouted again. Then he played dirty, something he didn't do often. He reserved those times, like a card shark hoarding an ace up his sleeve. Will kissed my neck, his tongue tracing a line down my throat, a line of fire and ice that set every tiny piece of me to trembling and screaming. "Agreed?"

"Agreed!" I choked out, pressing myself against him, my legs around his waist, pressing my body, that hot pulsing center, against his hip until I thought I might burst. He kissed me then, deep and fiery and completely perfect, and pulled away, leaving me aching and empty.

"I'll hold you to that, Virginia Whitlock. I don't take promises lightly."

I lay there gasping for air like a fish out of water, my entire body aching for fulfillment. His beautiful face hovered over mine, those rosy lips and dark eyes so seductive. His hard and manly body so close, so close to being mine.

"Dirty fighter."

He chuckled and kissed my cheek, but it was a chaste kiss this time, no passion but loving. "Absolutely. One day you'll thank me, though, I think."

He was right. When we did finally consummate our love, as husband and wife, it was something both spectacularly physical _and_ spiritual. Then, I was glad that we had waited, despite what my body told me during those long months of deprivation.

But at that moment, feeling like every nerve ending in my body was on fire? No, I wasn't glad at all.

So I applied myself during the week to finishing the ugly uniforms, waiting for my Sunday to see my love. I made sure I spent time with my mother and father, because I knew the time was coming very soon when they would likely disown me for the man I chose to marry, and I must hoard up those moments of their love and approval. When August rolled around I was prepared, my trunks packed, as if I were eager to embark on that adventure of higher learning. Mama was so thrilled that I'd seemingly accepted her decision, Papa too, and I couldn't disabuse them of it.

It just wasn't fair. The minutes dragged by eternally when I wasn't with Will. But when we were together, hours flew by like seconds.

Before I knew it, it was August. That was a hot one, one of the hottest Augusts I remembered. Perhaps it was Texas bidding me farewell. The grass died and turned to brittle yellow spears, the wind suffocating and full of blowing dust, because it hadn't rained in weeks. The sky was a colorless blank slate, no clouds offering shade or the promise of rain. I sat at my window and watched it all, thinking it looked like my heart felt at the prospect of leaving my family, my Will.

It still hadn't truly clicked in me, what he'd said about being there for me. I assumed he'd write. But letters weren't good enough. I wanted _him_. Yes, I was fifteen, but I was an old fifteen, and I was ready to be acknowledged as the woman I felt like I already was inside. I wanted to make a home with my man, have children, make a life together. I didn't want to go to some stodgy finishing school, where I would be valued for how good my posture was or how tight I could draw my corset, or how intricate my useless embroidery was.

Will laughed at me when I talked about how much I hated the idea of school, but it was a sympathetic laugh. He'd been there, he knew what it was like to be in a place where you weren't allowed to be yourself, when you were punished for doing what comes naturally, where everything is about changing you into someone you're not. He'd take me in his arms and kiss my forehead and tell me that I'd be fine, that I'd have them all eating out of my hand before I even turned around twice. And at least there I wouldn't be beaten, as he had. He never brought that last part up, because it hurt him, but I always thought about it when he spoke of school.

But all the sweet and comforting words in the world couldn't change the fact that I just plain _didn't want to go_.

I felt a bit strange about not wanting to take a trip, go on a voyage, go somewhere besides the few square miles that had been my entire world for more than fifteen years. I'd always wanted to wander, hadn't I? I'd always wanted to see new things; I'd been the child spinning the globe and letting my finger find the random destination to dream about. Now I had a grand adventure before me, if you could take away the fact that a school was at the other end of the trip, and I should have been excited. The independent and forward-thinking young woman I'd always tried to be protested my sudden shift of priorities: I was changing everything I was for a man!

_But oh, what a man!_ The new, sloppily-silly-in-love part of me sighed.

_But still!_ That other, older part of me snapped. _A man_!

My whisperers grumbled in agreement.

And it was all _me_, it wasn't _him_ at all. Will was all for me going to school, he encouraged me to be adventurous and accept the trip for what it was, he said: an opportunity. He wasn't trying to get me to stay home. He was the one telling me to be honorable and wise and patient.

Drat. So I couldn't blame him. I only had myself to look to for betraying myself. So I tried to be more resolute and accepting of the inevitable, and not dread.

Then the last night I'd sleep in my own bed came, because the next morning I'd be on my way north, into the great unknown. My bags were all packed, my steamer trunk full and tied carefully closed, my traveling clothes laid out neatly for me in the morning. Mama Dina fixed my favorite meal and I had to put on a brave face for everyone over the lovely supper.

They'd gone all out for my final night at home, the dining room table covered with the lovely damask cloth, and the silver candlesticks had been brought out and topped with new, sweet-smelling beeswax tapers. Mama and Papa were already at the table when I came into the dining room, dragging my feet, and they rose to greet me with excited smiles. Papa came around and pulled out my chair for me, like a beau, and scooted me in, dropping a kiss onto the crown of my head. Mama reached across the table, deftly avoiding all the silver and the candles, putting her cool little hand over mine and squeezing it for a moment.

Mama Dina served the meal with much ceremony and then left us alone, backing out the doors and closing them quietly behind her. But before she disappeared she shot me a warning look and gave me a stern little nod, and I knew exactly what she meant: be good!

So I tried on a smile, and it just didn't seem to fit my face. Then I looked at my parents, who looked so proud and happy their faces practically glowed…and I found the smile fit a bit better. A bit. A tiny bit.

I tried to eat, to show them that I was happy, at least a little, and so Mama Dina didn't feel bad about the food. But the roasted chicken and chestnut stuffing had no flavor to me. I swallowed and it lay in my stomach like a rock. Mama and Papa kept trying to keep the small talk flowing, but the awkward silences began lengthening, until finally we were all staring at each other helplessly over the melting vanilla ice cream atop the blackberry cobbler.

"Well." Papa cleared his throat and pushed back his chair, tossing his napkin down. "I think I have something that'll make you feel a bit better, sweetheart." He went to the sideboard and pulled out a wrapped package, which he set down next to my plate. "Go ahead, Ginny. Open it up."

I sighed and touched the paper. Normally, I love a good gift, but I knew it had something to do with the trip, and I just had a hard time mustering up anything resembling enthusiasm.

It was Saturday. And instead of meeting Will the next day, I'd be on a train heading north. I hadn't seen him the previous Sunday, either, he'd been too busy with work. And now…now there was no telling when I'd see him again. The childish and insecure part of me, the part new to love and unsure about how to act, wondered if perhaps this was on purpose: did he not want to see me again? Was him skipping last Sunday a way to make it easier for me to leave? Providing distance?

"Virginia! Wake up!" Mama's voice jolted me out of my reverie. "Open your father's present, darling."

I nodded dumbly and forced my fingers to move, to tear open the gay silver paper and reveal what was inside.

"Oh!" I gasped in surprise despite myself, when I realized what was inside.

It was a traveling writing desk, the bottom padded with deep blue velvet to be able to rest comfortably on my thighs as I wrote, the wood of it a dark, silky-smooth maple. The hinges were bright brass and made no noise when I opened the top, revealing the inside, which was also lined with the same blue velvet. I gasped again. Tucked neatly into their depressions was a beautiful set of silver pens, and all the things one might need to write comfortably in those days: the little knife for paring down quill nibs, inkpot carefully sealed, a small bag of fine sand to blot the drying ink, a chamois cloth for wiping down the silver barrels of the pens.

And a sheaf of beautiful paper tied in a deep blue silk ribbon, each page printed with my initials in lovely scrollwork lettering, and matching envelopes. I felt the pressure of tears behind my eyes and had to blink furiously to keep them from spilling over and falling into that writing desk and spoiling any of the precious pieces of paper. I knew this had cost a great deal of money, but more than anything, I was stunned with how appropriate it was, how much thought Papa had put into it.

"Thank you, Papa," I finally whispered, hesitantly touching the things inside. "Thank you so much!"

Papa cleared his throat again gruffly, and he blinked a few times as well, his dark blue eyes (my eyes...Jasper's eyes…_before_) too shiny. "Well. Ahem. Well, you're welcome."

Mama clapped her hands happily, and her smile was dazzling, a real smile, like from the times of my early childhood when she'd been so much more carefree. "My turn now!" she cried, waving Papa over to help her up. Her hip had been bothering her terribly lately, and she needed help getting in and out of beds and chairs, and her times in the garden were much more abbreviated.

He gently tugged her out of her chair and she leaned on his arm as she, too, went to the sideboard. She took something small out of a drawer and then limped over to sit down next to me, placing the tiny box in my lap.

"You have become exceedingly difficult to give gifts to, Virginia. This is one of many gifts, actually, but this one actually was easier to wrap. Go ahead, open it."

I smiled wryly: yes, I was a hard person for _her_ to give gifts to. No one else had a difficult time, no one who knew me in the slightest, that is. Her problem was that she wanted to give such "feminine" gifts, and those kinds of things weren't what I normally enjoyed getting. After all, how many monogrammed handkerchiefs or ridiculous feathered hats does one need?

I knew what was in the small box; it was jewelry of some kind. I glanced down at my hand: I was wearing her sapphire ring, a tribute to her and my last night at home. I rarely wore it otherwise, because such a beautiful and delicate piece of jewelry is best left unworn when one is occupied with cooking, cleaning, and doing farm chores.

I opened the box and smiled, truly pleased, dazzled by the beauty I saw. The earrings would match the ring perfectly: star sapphire teardrops. They gleamed richly, like the sea, against the black velvet, and I loved them, impractical as they were. I knew they were like my eyes; Will had told me often enough, the few times I'd worn my ring around him.

"Thank you, Mama," I said quietly, and then I suffered her to put them into my ears. She fussed with my hair for a moment, then sat back and sighed, shaking her head slightly, her own pale blue eyes teary.

"Virginia Lucille, if you ever took the time to do something with yourself you'd be stunning."

Papa grunted irritably. "She is stunning anyway, Margaret."

Mama rolled her eyes. "You know what I mean, Jasper Charles," she replied quietly, and she reached out to touch my cheek. "But I suppose that a lack of vanity is preferable to too much vanity, eh, darling?"

"Absolutely." And he put his big, warm hand on my shoulder.

For that moment, everything was wonderful. I felt so safe and loved there between them. I knew, despite her failures, Mama tried very hard to make me happy—she just tried in ways that she knew and was comfortable with. She didn't understand what a very different creature I was from her. But that didn't matter. She was better, Papa was better, and somewhere, Jasper was alive, in a manner of speaking. Our family was whole, albeit in a strange way.

Mama wiped her eyes and cleared her throat. "Of course, as I said, there is more, Virginia. You'll find a new coat and gloves in your trunk, and a new muff and warm scarf, for the winter will be cold. Be sure you use them, I hate to think of what your skin will be like after exposure to those winds and the cold…You never think about those things…"

It was my turn to roll my eyes. She continued breezily.

"And also, you'll find the books you'll need for your studies, of course. I know you'll do well."

I nodded. I never had problems with schoolwork, it came almost too easily. And I was a tiny bit excited by the prospect of proper lessons in a proper school, something I'd never had before.

Papa glanced at the clock: almost eight. "Probably time for you to be thinking about bedtime, sweetheart. Three in the morning will come early. You have to be on the train at eight, so you'll be leaving by five. Big John will be taking you down."

I stared at him. "You're not going?"

He shook his head. "No, I have to be here. I have a meeting with a very important cattle dealer tomorrow. He's passing through from Amarillo especially to meet with me, to discuss those new Herefords. I'm sorry, darling."

"And Mama?"

Mama shook her head. "I'm so sorry, Virginia, but there's no way I can make that trip, bouncing around like a seed in a pod on that wagon seat. My hip would be in pieces by the time we got there."

I felt the tears threaten again, my chest tight and my heart pounding. So I was going to be sent off alone. Well, not alone: Big John wasn't nobody. He'd be good company on the road. He'd been like a father to me, like Mama Dina had been like a mother to me. So he was good enough. Mama and Papa had their reasons for staying home, it had nothing to do with rejecting me, or being glad I was leaving.

Right?

Finally I nodded and went to get up, but Papa's gallantry wouldn't permit it: he had to scoot my chair out for me, helping me up and tucking my new desk under my arm. He kissed my cheek, his whiskers tickling me. "Goodnight, Virginia."

I kissed him back, then Mama, and then I left them in the dining room. Each step was so hard, I fought my tears every inch, struggling to keep my back ramrod-straight until I had found the quiet safety of my own room. Then, my back against the closed door, I let them come.

I slid down until I was sitting on the floor, and I buried my face in my arms, my new desk beside me on the floor. It was real, I was going away. I felt like I'd never come back again. I was wrong about that, but not by much. I'd never sleep in that house again.

I have no idea how long I stayed there, crying. But eventually a cautious tap on my door stirred me, and I had to get up, my joints complaining from being still so long. Wiping my eyes with the back of my arm, I opened the door a crack, pretty sure who it was. Only one person would tap like that.

Mama Dina's dark eyes gleamed at me. "Can I come in?" she whispered.

"Of course! Don't be silly!" I threw the door open and let her in. We sat down on my bed, and she clucked at my tears, reaching up to wipe one away with her thumb.

"I knows you're sad, baby. But it's for the best, y'know. You stays here an' you'll get stuck here. There's more for you out there, and you gots t' go get it."

She opened her arms wide, inviting me in. I needed no more than that; I fell into those arms and I hugged her so tight she gave a little laughing breathless gasp. I closed my eyes and buried my face in her neck, and I lost myself in the scent and feel of her, so familiar and comforting. She was like the bedrock of my world, the foundation: without her, I felt I might tilt over and slide into oblivion.

"I'm g-going to m-miss y-you!"

She chuckled and nodded against my hair, her hands stoking my back. "I know. Me too." She sighed. "I don't know what I'm gonna do without your help! I'm getting' too old t'handle it all on m'own!"

I snorted. She looked no older than she had when I was five. There was no grey in her black hair, her face was unlined. "Well, I'm sure Mama would let you hire someone else to help."

Mama Dina pushed me back, holding me at arm's length as she inspected me. Her eyes traveled over every part of my face, as if she was memorizing me. "You be good now, y'hear? Make me proud."

I nodded. I would.

"Well, I s'pose your ma an' pa gave you your other presents, so I'll give you this now." She reached into the pocket of her skirt and withdrew something, which she pressed carefully into my palm. "Thought you might like this. So's you don't forget us."

It was a picture of her and John, probably on their wedding day: they were younger and grinning, and she wore a white dress. They were beautiful together. "Oh, Mama Dina…" I frowned. "Like I'd ever forget you!"

She smiled sadly, knuckling a tear away at the corner of her own eye. "I know. But I still want you t'have it."

I got up and picked up my new writing desk, opening the lid. I got a pot of paste from my nightstand and coated the back of the photograph with it, and then I carefully fixed the picture to the inside of the lid, so that every time I opened it I'd see them. "There."

Mama Dina got up and hugged me again. "Be good," she whispered again, and I heard her voice break. Then she was gone, and her cinnamon and cloves scent lingered behind.

"Oh, hell's bells, this is hard," I muttered. I sat and touched the photo again. So young and so handsome, the both of them. Then I remembered something and I went back to my nightstand, pulling out a heavy history book. I kept it there for a reason: I kept my photographs and special things, precious few that there were, between the pages of the book to keep them flat. And, sometimes, when I was having particular trouble sleeping, I would read a few pages…and it would put me out like a blown-out candle.

Here was Mama and Papa on their wedding day, too. I marveled at how young they were, and especially how much Papa looked like Jasper. And there was a photo taken shortly before Jasper left, the two of us posing together. Here also were Jasper's letters: the one he'd left me the night he left, and the ones he'd written me while in the army. I took them all and put them in my desk, gluing the pictures to the inside of the desk lid next to Mama Dina and John's picture. At least I'd take them with me wherever I went, and I could write them, and see their faces while I did so.

I glanced at the clock, and felt my stomach sink with dread: it was after eleven. I only had four hours to sleep. And although I was exhausted, I knew if I lay down to try to sleep I'd simply stare at the ceiling, my stomach in knots and my mind a thorny tangle of conflicting thoughts. But I needed to at least try, if only for the sake of appearances, just in case one of my parents happened to come and check on me. I didn't want the lecture.

So I got up and wearily went through the ritual of letting down my hair, brushing it the hundred strokes Mama insisted on, till it hung in a heavy, shining curtain down my back. I undid all the buttons and snaps and ties of my clothing, sliding a nightgown over my head, rinsing my face and scrubbing my teeth with salt and soda. Then I sat down on my bed to re-plait my hair, since I could never sleep with it down: it was past my behind now, I could sit on it. It'd get terribly tangled if I left it unbound.

As I sat there and mechanically twisted my hair into braids, I started remembering. I looked around the room, the room which had been mine since my birth, and I remembered how it looked when I'd been an infant, so small, not knowing the words for anything, a helpless little thing who was far too aware for her age. I remembered Mama and Papa…and Jasper. I remembered learning the names for things. I remembered hearing my whisperers for the first time, and how special I had felt when I understood what was happening.

I felt a cool rustle in the fabric of reality and for just a moment, I felt something on my forehead, like a pair of lips pressed against the skin there. A ghostly kiss. A blessing, a warding, a wish for the best. I wondered suddenly: would my whisperers follow me north? Or would they stay here, or disperse to other places, and I might find a new set of them at my destination? I never understood how it worked. I knew some of them had things they had to accomplish before going to their final judgment and destination. Some were just confused. And others simply felt like hanging around for a while, keeping me company. They came and went, always welcome and friendly and helpful. I knew there were others out there, unfriendly and angry ones, but the helpful ones stayed close and protected me from them, for which I was glad.

_You have a very special mind, Virginia Whitlock. It must be protected._

I nodded absently, my fingers still busy with the braiding. _Thank you_, I thought back, not feeling like speaking. Suddenly I was tired, I felt like I might actually be able to sleep, and I was impossibly grateful for that: I didn't want to think and feel anymore for a while. I just silently prayed that I wouldn't have bad dreams.

Once I had finished tying up my hair, I blew out the candles and lay down, pulling my quilt up around my shoulders and hugging Jasper's pillow tight against my chest. I planned on tucking it into my bags the next morning, because there was no way I would go so far away without something of him to take with me.

My room was dark and cool, the moonlight slanting through the window all silvery and magical, casting mysterious shadows on the floor. I had left the window open to let in the breeze, and it curled around me, stirring the little strands of hair that had escaped my braids and tickling my neck, but it felt like a delicious caress against my skin, that sweet breeze. All the heat of the day had dissipated and the night was clear and beautiful, I could see the stars glimmering in the sky, so close I could almost believe I could reach up and touch them.

And I slept.

***

**WPOV:**

I don't know why I did it. All the logic in the world told me that sneaking into her room was a horrible idea. Not only did I run an excellent chance of being caught and probably shot by her father or, worse, discovered by Big John…I also didn't know if I could keep myself to my promise, that I would remain true and we would wait to be together as man and woman until we'd been married.

But I still did it. I pressed Rabbit to his utmost, as I always did when I was on my way to the Whitlock farm, leaning low over his neck and whispering encouragement into his ear, and we flew over the land like his namesake, barely touching the ground. The trip back was always slower, sadder, but the way to her home was fast, fueled by my excitement at being able to see her again.

The morning of her birthday, my world had changed completely. Totally. I'd gone from being an island unto myself to being part of something. Something had happened inside me, something completely against my will but completely welcome. Something completely irrevocable.

She'd come around the corner of the barn on that white horse, and it was like the universe shifted. When I looked into those dark blue eyes the first time, something changed in me. It was like I'd been turned upside down and shaken by a giant, and when I had regained my bearings and righted myself, suddenly this woman, this beautiful girl with her freckles and flyaway golden hair, was the center of the universe, and I was just a planet floating helplessly in her orbit. I wasn't me anymore, I wasn't just Will. I was _her_ Will.

I would do anything for her. I didn't even know her name, but I'd lay down gladly and die for her. I'd give her anything, endure anything, if it spared her a moment of pain or sadness. She was beautiful, backlit by the fierce morning sunlight, her hair a halo of gold around her lovely face, sitting on that pretty white mare as regally as a queen and as easily as if she'd been born to the saddle.

Oh, I loved her. I loved Virginia Whitlock. Immediately. And somehow, some way, amazing and wondrous and improbable as it was, she somehow loved me back.

I saw her eyes widen when she realized I was there. I heard her gasp and the hissing intake of surprised breath, I even heard her heartbeat speed up, and I watched her bite her lower lip in the most endearing and alluring way I'd never imagined possible.

Then, when I'd had the courage to actually ask her if I might see her again, and she'd said yes, I knew that it was truly fate. She felt it, too. She felt that crazy, impossible connection, too. Perhaps not like I did, it wasn't bred into her like it was in me, but it didn't matter: if she was willing to gift me with even a second of her time, if she felt even an ounce of the vastness of the love I felt for her, it was worth it.

I knew what had happened to me when I saw her. I knew it because my grandfather had told me about when it had happened to him, when he'd first seen my grandmother. He told me this happens when one of our men, one of the Protectors, finds their true other half, the best one for them in all the world: we're captured by them, held fast by some otherworldly force, made a prisoner to the whim of some woman. They even call it that: Capturing. He said he was entangled in the net of her long hair. But he'd grinned when he told me about it, and I knew he never regretted a second of his "imprisonment," because they'd still acted like lovesick teenagers at the ages of eighty and seventy-six. I'd envied that and hoped for it for myself. But when it did happen to me, and it happened with an Anglo girl, I was shocked.

But I didn't care. I knew I could bring her back to my people and they'd accept her. They knew the look a man who's been captured gets. And somehow I also knew that Virginia Whitlock was special enough that they'd accept her even if she hadn't captured me.

And then, when I had first touched her, helping her up after she'd spilled the corn for the chickens…I don't think the center of the sun is quite so hot. I was consumed by it, by the heat of her skin against mine. It was an exquisite, agonizing burn that I wished would never end. When our hands parted again, I felt the lack of it like a sick aching hole within me.

And then, to kiss her the first time…and every time thereafter…I just don't have words.

It took all of my self-control to behave myself. I knew that what we had was special and deserved to be treated as such. I also knew she was younger than me, and she needed some time to mature and reach the age among her people where she'd be counted as an adult and free to make her own decisions. My honor was strong, it begged and raged, telling me to go directly to her father and tell him that I wanted to marry his daughter, and that I would even if he said no: I wanted to give him my face and let him see that I was a man of integrity, and that I would and could provide for and protect his daughter, his only living child. That I'd worship her every day of our lives together. That I'd adore her and treat her as she deserved to be treated.

But my woman said no, and I trusted her, even though I hated being so deceitful. I didn't want to marry her secretly. I wanted the whole world to know. But I also know she had her reasons. She'd told me of the sickness that had spread through her family after her brother had gone, how her mother had gone into the darkness of despair and clawed her way back out again, how her father had sought solace at the bottom of a bottle of poison. And since I had seen those things myself, seen strong women driven mad by grief when their children died and seen brave men drown their pain in the white man's liquor, I couldn't judge. So I held my tongue. But soon, soon, she'd been sixteen and we could do what we wanted. I counted the days.

As I rode through the cool darkness of the night, watching the horizon for the white blur of her home, I remembered.

I remembered my Ma putting me on that train to school, weeping. She'd been so thin, so sad, begging me to be a good boy and make her proud. I imagined Ginny had been going through some similar things that night, the last night home with her family.

I remembered the school. The darkness and hunger, the fear and suspicion of others, never knowing who might tell on you for speaking in your own language for a better meal or a thicker blanket. I remembered the beatings, and I still bore the cane marks on the backs of my thighs and lower back. I dreaded Ginny seeing those eventually, I knew she'd weep and her heart would break for me again, and I hated making her pity me. I hated causing her pain.

I remembered hearing that my Ma was dead. That I was an orphan. That I was all alone in the world. I knew I could go back home and my aunties and uncles would be happy to have me, my cousins would swarm around me and want me to be part of their gang…but I had felt a tug elsewhere. Something was drawing me. And even though I was motherless, fatherless, something told me that it'd be all right in the end. And when I first laid eyes on my future, on the center of my universe, and felt the heat of what my grandfather had told me about when I was a small boy, burning me alive, I knew what it was. And it was all right.

Finally, ahead of me, the farmhouse appeared in the darkness, white against the black sky. I reined Rabbit in and dodged to the east, where I followed the path down to the creek bottom. I tethered Rabbit to a tree, close to the creek so he could drink, and I took his saddle off and hung it from a nearby branch, rubbing his sweaty back down with handfuls of grass. Grandfather and Pa had taught me well: care for your horse before yourself, for when you are hurt or exhausted, your horse, your friend and comrade, will carry you home.

"Relax for a while, boy," I murmured to him in Lakota, patting his neck; he huffed and lipped my palm, then nudged me in the chest with his forehead: go! And go I did. Up the trail and into the wide open hills again, heading for the house at a ground-eating pace that came easily to me.

Grandfather had warned me that there might come a time when I suddenly shot up in height and breadth, when I'd feel hot and feverish and shake uncontrollably, and that at those times it was the Protector in me, manifesting himself. I had to be very careful, I had to take myself away from people until I'd gained some control, but when I'd finished the transition I would be a formidable opponent to my people's foes. I'd grown taller and bigger, yes, but I hadn't experienced the fevers and fits of temper. I wondered about that, did it mean I wasn't one of them?

No, I'd realized. It wasn't necessary yet, if ever it would be. Grandfather said the Protectors came when the Enemy came. And since there were no Enemies around right then, my potential didn't manifest. But I had, naturally, the superior height and build, the endurance of a natural athlete, the reactions and instincts of a born warrior.

Protectors hadn't been needed in some time, since Grandfather's youth. He'd told me a story, of how the Elders had called a council in the face of the knowledge they were going to eventually be moved out of their lands by the Anglos. How they'd done the unimaginable: they'd called upon one of the Enemy itself, someone they knew was true and honorable, despite being an Enemy. How they'd asked him to watch over their lands, until the time came for the People to come home again. And he'd agreed, strangely. They called him the Guardian, and said he spoke nothing but the truth and knew it when he was lied to. Since our people prize honesty and honor above all, they honored the Guardian. Supposedly he was still watching over the Black Hills and the Badlands now, waiting for us to return and release him from his pledge.

Then the house was looming above me, huge and white and silent, and I looked up and saw my love's window, open, two floors up. It was an easy matter to climb up the trellis, among the fragrant bougainvillea and roses and honeysuckle, easy to climb over the windowsill and lower myself to the floor in her room.

She was sleeping.

She lay curled up on her side, her long lashes casting dark shadows against the smooth curve of her cheek, her hands clasped below her chin like a child praying. Her golden hair, tucked up in braids, was turned silver in the moonlight, which streamed into the room like a blessing, casting everything in a shimmering light or velvety shadow.

I couldn't move, struck deaf and dumb and turned to a statue by her beauty. A lump formed in my throat, I could barely breathe or swallow. My mind raced forward to the time when I'd be able to open my eyes and see her like this beside me, when she'd be completely mine, and I'd be able to reach up and undo those braids and let her long golden hair entangle me in its net.

Ever since I'd first seen her, when the universe had turned inside out and upside down, when we were apart my whole body and soul ached miserably. It was like she was part of me, and when we weren't together my being missed her, begged for her. Every minute apart was agony. But I was working hard, working extra, saving up money for our future together, getting through every day one at a time. I lived for those Sundays. I couldn't miss another one.

Then she sighed in her sleep, and she smiled, a tiny little smile, and I heard her murmur my name. "Will," she said softly, and I'd never heard my name sound so sweet.

My knees gave way, almost tumbling me to the ground. I had to go closer. I knelt by the bed and watched her breathe, her chest rising gently as she inhaled and exhaled, her lips still curved in that small, private smile, and I knew she dreamed of me.

I couldn't help myself. I leaned forward and I kissed her, gently, not wanting to wake her. I lost myself for a moment in the softness of her lips, in the smell of her, something like jasmine and violets and vanilla.

"Oh!" she gasped, her eyes opening to mine in surprise. "I'm dreaming!"

I touched the tip of her nose. "No. I'm here with you. Wake up, Sleeping Beauty. Just for a moment, so I can kiss you goodnight and send you to dream about me again." I was very proud of that sentence; Grandfather had always told me I had a way with words.

Ginny smiled, her arms coming up to twine around my neck, pulling me close against her, which did things to my body that were directly contrary to the keeping of my vow to wait until we were formally married. "I don't want to sleep. I want _you_," she whispered, her voice light as a feather against my ear.

I had to fight very hard against myself, biting down on my tongue so hard I saw sparks from the pain, but it gave me the strength to pull back and not slip under the blanket and make her completely mine. "Ginny…please. I…I just wanted to tell you goodbye before you leave in the morning. I know I missed last Sunday, and I didn't want you to go off without me seeing you again."

Instantly her mood changed, like a cloud covering the sun and casting everything into shadow. "I thought you might not want to see me again."

My heart stuttered, I was stunned. "Why wouldn't I want to see you again?"

She closed her eyes, and I saw the glimmer of tears between her eyelashes. "I don't know. But you missed last week, and then you're always telling me you want me to go to school and such…I thought maybe you'd been wanting to get rid of me."

My whole body went cold with shock. I grabbed her arms just above the elbow and hauled her up into a sitting position; she kept her eyes closed, her face falling to the side as if she didn't want to see me. I gave her a little shake, which made her gasp, her eyes flying open again, and her unshed tears fell to her cheeks, where the moonlight turned them to diamonds. "Never, _ever_, think that!" I said fiercely, perhaps too fiercely, because she trembled. "It's killing me to think about being apart from you!"

She stared at me, her eyes huge and miserable. "Really?"

I let her arms go to cradle her face between my hands, my big hands that could have crushed her so easily. She sighed and leaned into my touch trustingly, her eyelids heavy. "Really," I murmured, my lips inches from hers. "Really, really."

Then she kissed me, and I lost control for a moment. Before we realized it she was pinned to the bed beneath me, and she had kicked the blankets off, her nightgown hitching up to show her creamy white thighs, her bare legs wrapping around my waist and pulling me closer to her, her fingers clawing at my back and burying themselves in my hair… I felt her heart beat against mine, her ragged breathing matching my own as we pressed into each other, the blood raging and pulsing through our veins like wildfire.

"Will!" she moaned into my ear, and I thought I might fly to pieces, my need for her was so intense. "Now! Please!"

Oh, God, how I wanted to. She was so ready, so was I, and I knew this was the last time we'd be able to be like that for a long time…My body screamed for it, so did hers, and that insidious physical part of me urged me. _Why wait? What difference does it make, a few months, a piece of paper and a ring? Why wait, she's here, she wants you, you want her…_

_No._

And for some reason, incongruously, I saw Grandfather in my mind. Now, if there was ever an inappropriate time to see your grandfather, it's when you're halfway to making love with your woman. Talk about feeling exposed.

I heard his voice when he said "No." I almost expected to open my eyes and see him standing beside us, his buffalo robe pooling around his feet, the wrinkles in his leathery old face picked out sternly by the moonlight.

_You must honor your woman, grandson. She's no random tumble in the grass. Honor her_. I heard his voice, so clear and achingly familiar.

And strangely, I felt Ginny freeze beneath me at his words, and I felt her head turn and look to the right of us, toward the window where I imagined Grandfather standing, and I knew what was going on. _She's seeing him, hearing him. He's here. Really here._

_How embarrassing!_

I kept my eyes closed, but I sent a silent acquiescence to the old man, and I suppose it was enough because he must have vanished, since Ginny sighed and turned her face back to mine. Her kiss was chaste, and I felt a twin surge of relief and regret as she unwound her legs from around my waist. "I think we should calm down, sweetheart," she breathed. "Your family seems to think so, at least."

I felt the laugh building up deep down and let it out, bubbling up from inside me like a geyser, and I let it out, muffling the sound against her pillow. She laughed with me, beneath me, and the shaking of our bodies as we each laughed made it harder to think. Finally I had to roll off her, pulling the quilts back up to cover her again, and I lay down next to her, holding her tight against my chest, but separated by the blanket.

"Tell me a story, Will." Her voice was a bit sleepy, soft and muffled against my chest.

"What do you want to hear?" I asked, stroking the wild hairs back from her forehead. She has this wondrous curling blonde hair that refuses to stay bound. "The fox story? The moon and the sun's argument?"

She shook her head. "No. Something different. Something…something about love."

I thought for a moment, casting back in my memories for all the tales Grandfather had drilled into my head over those years of my childhood. "All right," I whispered. "I'll tell you a story, then. The story of the bashful courtship."

She shivered a little against me and sighed. "That sounds lovely."

So I reached back into my memories and I tried to tell it as Grandfather had told it, his old voice deep and sure and strong like a rushing river.

"_A young man lived with his grandmother. He was a good hunter and wished to marry. He knew a girl who was a good moccasin maker, who was the most beautiful girl in the village and whom he had long looked upon with longing, but she belonged to a great family. He wondered how he could win her. _

"_One day she passed the tent on her way to get water at the river. His grandmother was at work in the tepee wearing a pair of old worn-out sloppy moccasins. The young man sprang to his feet, an idea coming to him. 'Quick, grandmother -- let me have those old sloppy moccasins you have on your feet!' he cried. _

_"'My old moccasins, what do you want of them?' cried the astonished woman. _

_"'Never mind! Quick! I can't stop to talk!' answered the grandson as he caught up the old moccasins the old lady had doffed, and put them on. He threw a robe over his shoulders, slipped through the door, and hastened to the watering place. The girl had just arrived with her bucket. _

_"'Let me fill your bucket for you,' said the young man. _

_"'Oh, no, I can do it.' The beautiful girl said to him, shyly. _

_"'Oh, let me, I can go in the mud. You surely don't want to soil your moccasins,' and taking the bucket he slipped in the mud, taking care to push his sloppy old moccasins out so the girl could see them. She giggled outright. _

_"'My, what old moccasins you have,' she cried, quite taken with the handsome young man and his light heart. _

_"'Yes, I have nobody to make me a new pair,' he answered sadly. _

_"'Why don't you get your grandmother to make you a new pair?' the girl asked, puzzled. _

_"'She's old and blind and can't make them any longer. That's why I want you,' he answered, hoping she'd hear what he wasn't saying with his words. _

_"'Oh, you're fooling me. You aren't speaking the truth.' The girl was indignant but fascinated: she'd seen the youth before, too, and had wondered if she could ever be courageous enough to speak to him. _

_"'Yes, I am. If you don't believe -- come with me __now!'_

"_The girl looked down; so did the youth. They both knew what was before them: if she went with him, they were promised to one another. At last he said softly: _

_"'Well, which is it? Shall I take up your bucket, or will you go with me?' He wanted her to go with him, into the forest, where he would make her his wife. _

"_And she answered, still more softly: 'I guess I'll go with you!'_

"_The girl's aunt came down to the river, wondering what kept her niece so long. In the mud she found two pairs of moccasin tracks close together; at the edge of the water stood an empty bucket."_

I felt her shiver again, and heard her giggle. "So then…what you want is someone to make you moccasins?"

I chuckled into her hair. "I know you hate to sew. And I wear boots now."

"But I should know how to make moccasins."

"No, not necessarily. I don't care about that. You're good enough, moccasins or no moccasins."

She yawned. "But your family will expect me to make moccasins, right?"

I considered it. "Well, honestly, they'd be surprised if you did, sweetheart. They don't expect much from Anglo girls except silly things like embroidery and poetry."

Ginny shuddered. "God forbid." Then she pulled back and looked at me, her eyes huge and deep, the moonlight painting her all silver. "Just you wait. I'll make a mean pair of moccasins one day. And then they'll know you made the right choice."

I tightened my grip on her. "I'm sure you will."

We lay there in silence for a long time, and I thought she'd drifted into sleep again, until she suddenly whispered, "So, all it took was them walking into the forest together to be married?"

I sighed. "Well, there's more to it than that, of course. But it's the declaration of intent."

She squirmed against me. "Too bad there's no forests anywhere near here."

"Naughty girl. Go to sleep now. You have to get up in less than two hours."

She yawned. "Don't wanna. You're going to be gone when I wake up. And I don't want to leave you."

"Shhh." I kissed her forehead. She had no idea, truly no idea, what I was planning, and it delighted me. She was normally so perceptive that I never succeeded in surprising her. "Sleep."

"Okay." And she did. I was amused at how quickly she faded away, her breathing deepening, even a tiny snore drifting up to my ears.

I lay there for the remaining hours and watched her sleep. I was tired, too; I'd worked a ten-hour day at Gibson's, up since before dawn, then helped around the house with Mrs. Gibson (since I lived in their home I tried to be as helpful as possible), then sneaking out with Rabbit to make the long ride to see Ginny. But it didn't matter. It was worth it, to watch her sleep, to watch the blood pulse delicately at her neck, to hear her murmur in her dreams, which I knew were of me.

Three o'clock came too soon. I heard the grandfather clock in the sitting room downstairs chime the hour, the sound reaching ghostly arms up to where we lay together, warm and drowsy, in her bed. It was time to go. I knew I had to do it before she woke: I didn't think I'd have the strength to leave her, if I had to look her in the eyes and see her tears.

And I didn't want her to see mine.

So I gently untwined myself from her, and I kissed her forehead. "I love you, Virginia Whitlock. I'll see you soon," I whispered, and tore myself away, ducking under the window and over the sill, dropping down the two stories easily to the ground below.

Just in time. Above me I heard her door open, heard the woman she called Mama Dina whispering to her to wake up. Saw the glow of the candle that she surely sat by my love's bed. Then I heard Ginny sigh wistfully, and knew she woke and knew I wasn't there, and that she missed me.

I hid in the shadows when she leaned out the window and looked for me. She sighed again, and the sound came out all broken, and I knew she was crying. It took every ounce of willpower I had to not climb back up that trellis and take her in my arms again, she was crying!

_Be patient, grandson…and granddaughter._

I closed my eyes and I felt his presence, like I heard his voice. _All right, grandfather_.

When I was sure she was gone from the window I ran off to liberate Rabbit. I had a long way to go.

***

**GPOV:**

It was agonizing getting myself ready, watching Big John lug my things down the stairs and loading them onto the wagon. He hauled me up into the seat next to him and draped a blanket around my shoulders. "Here now, Miss Ginny. You jus' lean up on me an' sleep if'n you wants."

Mama Dina handed up a warm jug, full of coffee, I assumed. "Here you go, baby." Then she turned her huge, wise, catlike eyes on me, and her hand found mine under the blanket. "You be good, sweetie. And we'll see you soon."

I nodded numbly. It was so cold, the stars were almost gone, the moon set, the wind bone-chilling as it swept around us and under the blanket. But that didn't matter: the cold inside me was worse, the cold emptiness I felt at leaving. At leaving my Will behind.

John clucked at the horses and tapped the reins, and we rattled off into the chilly pre-dawn air. I turned my head to watch the house disappear behind me, blending into the distance as we went. Finally it was gone, and the prairie rolled on endlessly, featureless and blank ahead of and behind us.

The long trip down to Houston passed in an instant, it seemed. It couldn't be possible that all those miles had whirled by, and then John was handing me up into the train, a sad smile on his face as he waved goodbye. It didn't seem possible that I was sitting there and watching the depot fall behind, watching John become a speck in the distance. Watching the hills fly by in a haze as the dawn touched the horizon. Watching Texas pass by, and watching my life change as I left everything and everyone I knew and loved behind me.

And then I saw him.

He was riding hard, trying to keep up with the train as it gained speed. Bent low over Rabbit's neck, he was waving at me frantically.

Will.

I pressed my hand against the window glass, and I felt my joy bubbling up inside me like a hot spring, warm and comforting. Something healed in my chest, the pain eased, because I saw his face, his smile, and I knew he loved me, and that it would all be all right.

"I love you!" he yelled, whipping the hat from his head and throwing it up into the air, where the wind caught it and sent it sailing. "I love you, Virginia Whitlock!"

"I love you, too, William Standing Bear," I whispered, pressing my lips to the glass.

Then the train was just too fast, and he began falling behind. Rabbit was tiring. He stopped and watched me go, waving still. He disappeared in the distance after a few minutes, but I kept my face and hands pressed to the cold glass, willing him to appear again. But eventually I knew it was silly. I was so tired. I needed sleep. And I wanted the hours and miles to pass as quickly as possible.

I sat back and closed my eyes, and I imagined him. His dark, dancing eyes, his wicked-sweet grin, the warm gentleness of his touch. He loved me. I loved him. I just had to endure a few months. That was possible. A few months, and we'd be together.

_Forever_, my whisperers murmured, and I was comforted by their familiar presence. _Just be patient_.

I relaxed and slept, and my dreams were of him, and the future, and it was good.


End file.
